tailf1
Follow the growth of a log file
Usage
tailf [option]
file
Overview
tailf is deprecated. It may have unfixed bugs and will be removed from util-linux in March 2017. Nowadays it's safe to use tail -f (from coreutils), in contrast to what the original documentation below says.
tailf will print out the last 10 lines of the given file and then wait for this file to grow. It is similar to tail -f but does not access the file when it is not growing. This has the side effect of not updating the access time for the file, so a filesystem flush does not occur periodically when no log activity is happening.
tailf is extremely useful for monitoring log files on a laptop when logging is infrequent and the user wishes the hard disk to spin down to conserve battery life.
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-n, --lines=number, -number -
Output the last number lines, instead of the last 10.
-
-V, --version -
Display version information and exit.
-
-h, --help -
Display help text and exit.
Releases
11 releases since Debian 1.1 (Buzz); the text changed 6 times.
--help since Debian 7 (Wheezy);
--lines since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze);
--version since Debian 7 (Wheezy);
-V since Debian 7 (Wheezy);
-h since Debian 7 (Wheezy);
-n since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze);
-number since Debian 8 (Jessie).
-N until Debian 7 (Wheezy).