SuperTail

SuperTail is a log file forwarder for UNIX. If you use some software that writes logs only to files, but you use syslog for centralised log storage, then SuperTail can turn the log files into a syslog stream. It's not complex, just novel, and simply puts together a number of UNIX tools to do the work.

SuperTail is copyright under the GNU General Public License.

Download/view it here (v0.1) or changelog. Here are init scripts for Red Hat chkconfig and Solaris.

GNU tail is required for this to work, because it has the --F (follow) and --pid switches. Standard Linux tail is almost certainly GNU tail, but standard Solaris tail is not. However, some versions of Solaris provide GNU core utilities on the Solaris Companion CD. Alternatively, download and install a Core Utilities package from Sunfreeware.

SuperTail is based on an idea by Nathan Hand.

To install and use:

  1. Ensure you have the prerequisites: logger and GNU tail
  2. Copy the script into an appropriate place, such as /usr/local/sbin.
  3. Copy the init script into an appropriate place, such as /etc/init.d/.
  4. Create/edit the defaults file and set LOGFILES to a list of log files to be converted.
  5. Run the init script with a start parameter.
SuperTail has been used under Linux and Solaris.

Comments, submissions welcome: jeremy+supertail@laidman.org