Usually, the log files are rotated frequently on a Linux server by the logrotate utility. You won’t need to use the -f switch because the command is built-in with the -f argument. The second version of the command is actually a command itself: tailf. $ sudo tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log In the first example the command tail needs the -f argument to follow the content of a file. However, the command to display the file has two versions, as illustrated in the below examples. tail Command – Monitor Logs in Real TimeĪs said, tail command is the most common solution to display a log file in real time. Read Also: 4 Good Open Source Log Monitoring and Management Tools for Linux 1. Some of the most known and heavily used utility to display a file content in real time in Linux is the tail command (manage files effectively). How can I see the content of a log file in real time in Linux? Well there are a lot of utilities out there that can help a user to output the content of a file while the file is changing or continuously updating.
