dtail is a simple bash script to watch contents of file in directories using inotify-tools and tail.
You can watch any files even if they are newly created in directories.
dtail watches all files and directories trapping events CREATE, MODIFY and DELETE.
dtail creates a tail process for each watching file and has a process pool that is a list of tail processes.
When CREATE and MODIFY event of a file that is not monitored by dtail is fired, dtail starts background tail process and adds it to the process pool. If the pool is full, the oldest process is deleted from the pool and the tail process is killed.
The pool size, that is the maximum number of background tail processes, can be specified by user.
Event of a directory or file without reading permission is ignored.
- bash 3.1+
- inotify-tools 3.7+
Usage: dtail [options] [--] path...
Options:
-r|--recursive
Watch subdirectories recursively.
--exclude <pattern> | --excludei <pattern>
Exclude files if filename matches <pattern> (POSIX extended regular expression).
It is case insensitive with --excludei.
--fromfile <file>
Read filenames to watch or exclude from a file, one filename per line.
If filenames begin with @ they are excluded as described above.
-p|--poolsize <num>
Maximum number of watching processes. Default 1.