MultiTail is a program for monitoring multiple log files, in the fashion of the original tail

Tail (Unix)

tail is a program on Unix and Unix-like systems used to display the last few lines of a text file or piped data.-Syntax:The command-syntax is: tail [options]...

 program. The original tail presents the last few lines of a single log file, optionally providing a real-time display of the growing file.

MultiTail started as an attempt to provide a program which would display two log files in a split screen. Originally it was a copy of wtail. The difference was that wtail started reading at the start of the file by itself while MultiTail invoked one or more tail processes which only display the last few lines.

MultiTail splits the terminal window or the console of a Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 system into two or more subwindows into which it can merge log files and command outputs. It can also display (like the original tail) in a single window.

Capabilities include:

• Monitoring of wildcards: if another file matching the wildcard has a more recent modification date, it will automatically switch to that file. This allows monitoring a complete directory of files
• Merging of two or more input sources
• Use of colors when displaying the log files (through regular expressions), to distinguish important information.
• Filtering of lines (through regular expressions)
• Interactive menus for editing regular expressions and for deleting and adding windows.
• Use the output of shell scripts and other software.
• Mimicking the functionality of tools such as watch
  Watch (Unix)
  watch is a GNU command-line tool that runs the specified command repeatedly and displays the output on stdout so you can watch it change over time. By default, the command is run every 2 seconds, although this is adjustable with the -n secs argument...
  
   when viewing the output of external software.

Platforms:

• Multitail runs on all major Unix
  Unix
  Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
  
   platforms (AIX, *BSD, HP-UX
  HP-UX
  HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...
  
  , IRIX
  IRIX
  IRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS file system.The last major version...
  
  , Linux
  Linux
  Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
  
  , Mac OS X
  Mac OS X
  Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
  
  , SCO OpenServer
  SCO OpenServer
  SCO OpenServer, previously SCO UNIX and SCO Open Desktop , is, misleadingly, a closed source version of the Unix computer operating system developed by Santa Cruz Operation and now maintained by the SCO Group....
  
  , Solaris, Tru64) and also on Cygwin
  Cygwin
  Cygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment...
  
   1.5.19-4; Cygwin allows running Unix programs on Microsoft Windows
  Microsoft Windows
  Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
  
  .

External links

• Features: http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/features.html
• Website: www.multitail.org
• Logo design: Peterpaul Kloosterman ontwerp en typografie: