How to tail an ubuntu log file

Borislav Hadzhiev

Sat Nov 28 2020·1 min read

Most of your log files on linux are in the var/log directory.

It's always useful to be able to check the stream of information in a log file, so you don't have to constantly close and open the file to update it.

On Ubuntu you can do this in the following way:

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sudo tail -f /var/log/auth.log

Note that the -f stands for follow.

Ubuntu is also nicely configured to automatically compress your log files and store them for you.

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