tail

Similar to the head command, the tail command lets you see the last 10 lines of a file by default.

$ tail /var/log/syslog

Along with head you can change the number of lines you want to see.

$ tail -n 10 /var/log/syslog

Another great option you can use is the -f (follow) flag, this will follow the file as it grows. Give it a try and see what happens.

$ tail -f /var/log/syslog

Your syslog file will be continually changing while you interact with your system and using tail -f you can see everything that is getting added to that file.

Exercise

Look at the man page of tail and read some of the other commands we didn't discuss.

$ man tail

Quiz Question

What is the flag used to follow a file in tail?

Quiz Answer

-f