If you really want to see what's happening beneath the hood of your Linux distribution, you need to use log files. Written by Jack Wallen, Contributing Writer Dec. 23, 2024 at 8:18 a.m. PT ...

With tail, you can view a Linux log file as the system writes to it in real time. So while you’re trying to troubleshoot that system, you can follow the syslog, the auth.log, faillog, kern.log ...

The tail command makes it easy to view log entries as they are written in real-time. Jack Wallen shows you how to make use of this indispensable tool.

Linux system log files are by default set to rotate. Depending on the age or size, a sequence of files moves back a step, the oldest being removed and a new one taking over as the current log file ...