Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Ubuntu,  Unix

Mac OS X: tail

I was on the phone with someone earlier today and they didn’t realize that they could dynamically watch new lines come into log files in Mac OS X.  In order to do this you can use the tail command with the -f switch.  So if you want to watch your system.log file and run some processes you think will cause errors you can use the following command:

tail -f system.log

When you’re done watching the log file use the Control-C keystroke to stop.