KmTail

KmTail is a KDE4 version of the venerable Ktail program. It has pretty much the same features and allows you to monitor various log files. Note that most files in /var/log are only root-readable so you will have to start KmTail with kdesu or, much better, configure syslog-ng to use more convenient permissions.

Log files are added via the File menu as usual or may be dragged from a file manager. Tabs may be reordered by dragging them around.

KmTail 1.0 has dropped support for named pipes (FIFOs) because their behaviour is too unreliable. If you want to expose a syslog message's priority and facility for automatic highlighting by KmTail, you need to make some simple changes to
/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf (see the README).

Since KmTail 0.9 date/time extraction is possible to convert non-standard log files into the syslog format, increasing legibility. Presets are provided for many common log file formats and you may also specify your own. What's This popups provide some guidance on regexps and templates. It is also possible to specify the number of columns (fields) the message is parsed into, which will also increase legibility for certain logs.

Version 1.0 28/07/2013
o Drop FIFO support and use .
o All eight priorities can be specified in highlighting.
o Provide open/close buttons on tab bar.
o Tab bar is only shown if there is more than one tab.
o Add a menu to the tabs to detach/close a file.
o Remember the last directory when opening a new log.

Version 0.9.1 20/09/2010
o Enable number of columns to be specified.
o Improve logrotate handling.

Version 0.9 04/09/2010
o Enable date/time extraction for files so a uniform view is possible.
o Clean-up config dialog.
o Many small improvements.

Version 0.8 29/08/2010
o Rewrite to do own tailing; no more external programs.
o Single-shot mode if log file passed as argument.
o Internal reorganisation.

Version 0.7.1 22/08/2010
o Add Spanish translation.

Version 0.7 15/08/2010
o Fix occasional hang in pipe read.
o Trap syslog-ng shutdown to avoid loop in pipe support.
o Enable horizontal scroll bar, finally!

Version 0.6 02/07/2010
o Fix date parse error in pipe support.
o Fix not all process getting cleanly stopped at shutdown.

VVersion 0.5 15/06/2010
o Support syslog-ng named pipes.
o High-light tabs with new output.

Version 0.4 06/05/2010
o Correct include statement.
o Fix tail retry parameters.
o Graceful fall-back to GNU tail if no turbotail installed.
o Add close action.

Version 0.3 05/05/2010
o Add configuration dialog

Version 0.2 04/05/2010
o Highlight colours are saved/restored.
o Improved tool-tip formatting.

Version 0.1 26/04/2010
o First release.