Web Server Logs - Viewer/Filter

Questions
#1

If i have server log, Any tools that can help in viewing the logs and filter based on exceptions and errors?

Currently, I am using Notepad++.

#2

I usually use grep and less or Splunk if available. Less is good when you are working with one file, grep is good when you work with a whole directory structure. Splunk is good if you can afford it.

To use less:

less a-log-file.txt

And then use available shortcuts. The ones I most often use are: F, ?pattern, N, n, G, g.

To use grep:

grep a-directory-with-logs/* IOException

And use the available options, the ones I most often use include: -r, -C, -i.

I often combine those in a shell with tools like find, wc, sort, uniq, tee, sed, awk for example:
To get unique sorted values of the 3rd column of the log file only for entries for the given ip:

find /nfs/logs -name \*access.log | xargs -I {} grep {} 192.168.0.1 | awk '{print $3}' | uniq | sort
#3

Is there a software for Less or grep ?

#4

What do you mean by “a software for less and grep”?

#5

The Log File Navigator, lnav (http://lnav.org/), is a useful
command-line tool for popular log file formats.

1 Like