doing a tail on rotating log files

We learned something today, not something new, but new to us. If you do a tail -f to view the end of a log file, it all goes great until your logging system rotates out the file. Then you’re stuck wondering if the program has halted or if your ssh connection died or if you hit Ctrl-S and froze your terminal.

But if you use tail -F (note the big F) it will check to see if the file has been rotated out and another put in its place, and will resume tailing on the new file. Happy tails to you!