https://xiffy.nl/tags/lnav/ Recent content in Lnav on xiffy Hugo -- 0.153.5 en-us Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:31:44 +0200 https://xiffy.nl/blog/forget-tail-and-grep-use-lnav/ Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:31:44 +0200 https://xiffy.nl/blog/forget-tail-and-grep-use-lnav/ <p>From the day I discovered the infamous <code>tail</code> command on Unix/Linux I was using it to follow logfiles. Most of the times, after a quick investigation combined with a smart grep command, to filter out noise, or to just catch the errors. I remember complete sessions of following 10 logfiles combined with advanced filtering after each discovery.</p> <p>But that is past tense, after I discovered <a href="https://github.com/tstack/lnav"><code>lnav</code></a>.It serves the same purpose, following logfiles. But there is a big difference, it understands logfiles, it has a memory, you can pick up sessions where you left off, and it has advanced filtering on the fly. That means no more ctrl-c arrow-up and edit the last tail command. It is also capable of decompressing zipped logfiles which makes searching in old logfiles so much easier.</p>