.TH MTAIL "1" "May 2008" "mtail " "User Commands"
.SH NAME
mtail \- tail variant designed for web developers monitoring logfiles
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B mtail
[\fIoptions\fR]  \fI<file>\fR...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
MonkeyTail allows a user to tail multiple files on both local and remote hosts
and clearly marks inactivity by putting 5 newlines in the output whenever a
pause in output over 3 seconds is detected.
.PP
MonkeyTail is implemented a fairly simple wrapper script around standard tail,
ssh, and sudo.
.SH OPTIONS

.TP
\fB\-q\fR
Quiet mode
.TP
\fB\-\-quiet\fR
"    "
.TP
\fB\-n\fR
Output the last N lines of each file before tailing (defaults to 0)
.TP
<file>...
Files to tail.
.IP
These can specified in the following ways:
.TP
@<groupname>
\- expands the group (from .mtailrc) to a list of
.IP
files to tail
.TP
<filename>
\- tails a local file.
.TP
+<filename>              \- attempts to sudo and tail a local file (will
prompt for pwd if required).
.TP
<remotehost>:<filename>
\- attempts to invoke tail via ssh on a remote
.IP
host.
.TP
+<remotehost>:<filename> \- attempts to invoke sudo tail via ssh on a
remote host (will prompt for pwd if required).
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
.BR mtailrc (5),
.BR tail (1)
.SH AUTHOR
.PP
Martyn Smith <martyn@dollyfish.net.nz>