9. tail
Lesson Content
Similar to the head command, the tail command lets you see the last 10 lines of a file by default.
$ tail /var/log/syslogAlong with head you can change the number of lines you want to see.
$ tail -n 10 /var/log/syslogAnother 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/syslogYour 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 tailQuiz Question
# What is the flag used to follow a file in tail?
> It is the complementary of head command.The tail command, as the name implies, print the last N number of data of the given input. By default it prints the last 10 lines of the specified files.
1. [ ] tail -c
2. [ ] tailf
3. [ ] follow
4. [x] -f