NQTAIL(1)

📦 version 1.0, in alpine 3.24, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 nqtail — the job queue log viewer, bestie edition 💖

okay so picture this: you're running stuff with nq, and you just wanna watch it happen. that's nqtail, and it lives in the General Commands Manual, section 1. she's simple, she's cute, she's literally just here to follow your logs. periodt. ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

nqtail [-a] [-n] [-q] [job id ...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

nqtail is a simple utility for “following” the output of nq(1) jobs. that's the whole vibe. she follows. you watch. iconic behavior fr fr.

if you give her no arguments, she emits the output of the currently running and queued as-of-now jobs 💅. but if you do pass job ids, she uses those instead. your call, bestie.

and here's the slay part: nqtail automatically terminates after the corresponding jobs are done. no babysitting, no ctrl-c, she just knows. main character energy honestly.

so the options are as follows:

  • -a — output all log files, even of already finished jobs. yes, even the ones that are done-done. she'll still show you.
  • -n — don't wait for new output. this one is perfect for peeking at enqueued commands 👀. like a lil sneak preview.
  • -q — only print the first line of each job output (i.e. the exec line). short and sweet. a lil taste. a sampler platter 🍓.

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • NQDIR — directory where lock files/job output resides. check nq(1) for the deets, iykyk.

⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

the nqtail utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. clean exits only, no drama 💅.

🔥 INTERNALS 🔥

okay this is the techy tea and it's actually so cool:

  • on Linux, inotify(7) is used to monitor job output.
  • on FreeBSD and macOS, kqueue(2) is used.
  • on other operating systems, polling is used.

she adapts. she's versatile. she's everything 🫶.

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

  • nq(1)
  • nqterm(1)

💜 AUTHORS 💜

Leah Neukirchen <leah@vuxu.org> — absolute legend, no cap 🙌.

🎀 LICENSE 🎀

nqtail is in the public domain ✨.

to the extent possible under law, the creator of this work has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

so basically: do whatever you want with her, she's free, she's yours, go wild bestie 💖

and that's the whole page, babes 🦋 — this beauty shipped with Debian, dated July 3, 2024. go forth and tail those logs, you've got this 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from