E2TAIL(1)

💖 E2TAIL(1) 💖

okay bestie, so this one is e2tail — a basic version of the tail command, but for an ext2 filesystem. literally the little sibling of tail that lives inside your ext2 world. slay.

✨ NAME ✨

e2tail — a basic version of the tail command for an ext2 filesystem 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

e2tail [options] file

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so the e2tail(1) command implements a basic version of the tail(1) command. that's it, that's the vibe. iconic behaviour, minimal drama. 💖

👑 OPTIONS 👑

• -n num_lines — the number of lines to display. you want this many lines? you get this many lines. periodt. ✨
• -f — output appended data as the file grows. 🫶 this one is inode dependent, so if the file gets renamed, it will keep checking it. the inode said "i'm not leaving", and honestly? respect. 🔥
• -F — output appended data as the file grows, but this one is file name dependent. so if the file gets renamed, it will check on any new files with the same name as the original. super useful for watching log files that may be rotated out occasionally. 🌀 this was requested by a person in the computer security field for monitoring 'honeypot' type machines — not me saying cybersecurity girlies ate, but like… they did. 👑
• -s sleep_interval — the number of seconds to sleep before checking if the file has grown while in 'follow' mode. 😴 the default is 1. beauty sleep but make it filesystem monitoring. 💅

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

check /var/log/messages on /dev/sdc1 every 10 seconds:

e2tail -s 10 -F /dev/sdc1:/var/log/messages

see? 10 second naps, -F energy, watching that file like it's the main character. 🌈

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

e2tools(7), e2ln(1), e2ls(1), e2mkdir(1), e2cp(1), e2rm(1), e2mv(1).

the whole e2 squad fr fr 🫶

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

the e2tools were written by Keith Sheffield <sheff@pobox.com>. 💜

this manual page was written by Lucas Wall <lwall@debian.org>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others). 🌸

ok that's the whole page bestie, no notes, every flag accounted for, we ate and left no crumbs 💅✨

and a lil sign-off for the record: this is the Linux manual, dated 2020-02-05, filed under E2TAIL(1). mwah 💖🦋