Tailing Remote Log Files on OS X

I wanted to share how I deal with watching remote log files on our production server.

First, I ssh to the server, tail the log, and pipe the output to a file on my local machine.

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$ ssh server "tail -f /path/to/production.log" >> ~/Library/Logs/prod.log &
[1] 87094

The & at the end of the command will run the process in the background so you don’t have to keep a terminal window open with no output. When you run the command it will return a process id you can use to kill the process later.

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$ kill -9 87094

Now that we have a local log file updating in real time, we can use the built-in Console.app to watch the log. In Console.app, open your local log file by going to File > Open Quickly > Files > ~/Library/Logs > prod.log.

I usually drag Console.app to my second monitor and give it a desktop of it’s own. Since I will typically keep higher priority apps up on my second monitor it’s useful to know when the log is being written to. Console.app has a preference to do this, just goto Console.app > Preferences and check Animate the application icon or Bring log window to front, send back after: (whichever is least annoying for you).