...an almost complete featurelist

• Display logfiles
  • More than one in multiple windows
    • Terminal window is not only horizontally divided, also vertical is possible
      • Height/width of the windows can be set
      • Number of windows per column can be configured
    • Windows can be swapped and closed
    • A window can temporarily be hidden
      • all windows can be unhidden at once
      • all windows but the one selected can be hidden at once
    • New windows can be created
      • The fileselector has "TAB-completion"
    • Windows can be temporarily hidden
    • all windows can be merged into one new popup window
  • Multiple logfiles can be merged into one window
  • One can search in all windows at once
    • All found lines can be merged into one new popup-window
    • or displayed reversed (highlighted) in their original window
  • Logfiles can be filtered with the help of one or more regular expressions
    • Certain lines can be suppressed -or- everything is supressed instead of what matches with the regular expressions
      • parts of strings can be selected (like sed substring selections)
      • parts of strings can be removed (using either column selection and range selection)
    • Control characters can be displayed in caret notation
    • An external tool can be executed when a regular expression matches
    • Parts of the line can be highlighted
    • The screen can flash or a beep can be heard when a regular expression matches
    • Certain parts of the logfiles can be highlighted via colors.
      • Selections with regular expressions.
      • Selection on field-number/string offset
      • Color schemes can be defined in a configurationfile. A couple of examples have been included (Postfix, Apache, RSStail, Acctail, WTMPtail, Squid, Asterisk, Sendmail, Mailscanner, Samba, Exim, HTTPing, TCPdump, ISC-DHCPD, Bind, Smartmontools, Kerberos, NTPd, nagtail, WebSphere (SystemErr), NNTPcache, Veritas Netbackup procmail, Checkpoint Firewall-1, Netscape directory server (LDAP), log4j, ClamAV, p0f, sysstat, portsentry, pppd, strace, Linux firewall (netfilter) logging, Argus, Snort, Motion, IBM AIX errpt, MySQL error log, BOINC, acpitail, netstat) - easily extensible.
      • Default color scheme for certain files can be selected in the configurationfile (using regular expressions (NOT wildcards!))
      • External scripts(!) can be used to determine what colors to use where in the logged lines
      • Use of colors can be switched off
    • One specific color can be set for one file/command: usefull when merging multiple inputs in one window
    • When setting colors, one can select a foreground and a background as well as an attribute (bold, underline, etc.)
    • a set of reg-exp filters can be defined in the configfile
    • priority of regular expressions can be set
  • A label can be put in front of lines depending on the subwindow (usefull when merging)
  • Parts of lines can be filtered
    • Using ranges
    • Using column-numbers
    • Using regular expressions
  • MultiTail can act as a "visual pipe" (or 'multi-tee'). While displaying inputs, the following is possible:
    • The input can be written to one or more files, either filtered or unfiltered
    • The input can be send (piped) to one or more processes, either filtered or unfiltered
    • The input can be send (piped) to a syslog server, either filtered or unfiltered
  • MultiTail can act like a syslog server
  • When it is detected that a line gets repeated, it can be replaced with a "Last message repeated x times" message
  • A mark-line can be added automatically when it is detected a logfile/process has been idle for a configurable amount of time
  • When a file has changed, the statusline (each logfilewindow has a statusline) is updated to show the new size and the timestamp of the change ('atime')
    • Statusline can be switched off
    • Statusline can be put above or below data window
    • Colors/attributes of statusline can be set
    • A message can be shown when the current user has new mail
    • Instead of the filename/commandline a more descriptive text can be put in the statusline
    • Filesizes can be abbreviated to KB/MB/GB
    • A statusline in the xterm titlebar can be shown:
      • Current user
      • Current hostname
      • Name of changed file
      • Timestamp of change
      • System load
      • "new mail" indicator
  • The initial number of lines read can be set
  • Instead of the descriptor also the filename can be followed (usefull for situations where "mv log log.old" is done after which a new file 'log' is created)
  • It can also monitor wildcards: if another file matching the wildcard has a more recent modification date, it will automatically switch to that file. That way you can, for example, monitor a complete directory of files.
• Of course, STDIN can be monitored as well.
• You can truncate a logfile from within MultiTail
• Idle windows can automatically be closed.
• Window can be left open when the process underneath exits
• Windows can be restarted
• Not only logfiles, also external programs can be viewed (e.g. the output of netstat)
  • Programs can be automatically restarted (like the 'watch' program)
    • Restart interval can be set
    • The difference since the previous run can be displayed (instead of everything)
    • The last exit status of command is displayed in the statusline
    • a window can be cleared before a new iteration (-rc)
  • One can now send signals to running commands
  • Output can be merged with the output of other programs
  • Output can be merged with logfiles
  • Output can be colored: see 'logfiles'-section
  • Output can be filtered: see 'logfiles'-section
  • A statusbar can be shown: see 'logfiles'-section
  • One can type in the window of a program, like the 'splitvt' program
  • Line wrap is configurable
    • Cut off at the left or right
    • Wrap at the right
    • Cut off at the syslog procname
• One can scrollback in a window
  • All text (including that of the scrollbackbuffer) can be stored in a file
  • Size of scrollbackbuffer can be set (in number of lines and KB)
  • A searchfunction is included (also with regular expressions!)
  • Line wrapping can be switched off, after that one can scroll to the left/right with the cursor keys
  • Scrollback window has the same keybindings of 'less'
  • All scrollback windows can be cleared in one go (press 'N')
• One can set marks
  • A mark (a line) can be set so that one can easily see what is new
    • The attributes (foreground, background, underline, bold, etc.) can be set for the markerline
    • A timestamp can be printed in the markerline
  • A window can be cleared while maintaining the scrollbackbuffer
  • MultiTail can automatically add a marker when it switches subwindow
  • syslog '-- MARK --' lines can be replaced
  • when a window is idle for a configurable amount of time, a markerline can be displayed
• The width of a tab can be set
• For lines longer then the width of a window, one can set what to be shown:
  • The complete line
  • Only the left part
  • Only the right part
  • A configurable offset
  • In case of a 'syslog'-style logfile;
    • Everything after the date/time
    • Everything after the date/time without the procname
• Update frequency of the display can be set (default: immediately), usefull for slow links
• Some statistics can be shown (update frequency, tendency of the update frequency)
• Bind external programs to keys. For example: one can let MultiTail execute /usr/bin/pine when CTRL+G is pressed. That way MultiTail can act as a central command center.
• In case one is monitoring something without timestamps, multitail can add them itself
• The format of timestamps can be configured in the configurationfile
• While displaying, MultiTail can convert parts of the input:
  • ip-adresses to hostnames
  • an external script can be invoked for the conversion
  • seconds since the UNIX epoch to user configurable timeformats
  • "errno" values to descriptive messages
  • decimal to hex and hex to decimal
  • tai64 (qmail etc.) to user configurable timeformats
  • a value to KB/MB/GB
  • signal number to signal name
• Has context-sensitive on-line help (press F1 at any time)
• Instead of a beep, one can get a beep, a flashing screen, nothing or a popup
• all configurationfile settings can be set from the commandline
• suppressing of empty lines can be configured in the configfile
• one can let multitail beep for every x-th line it processes
• inputfields have a history buffer which is automatically stored on disk
• other tail variants can be used (e.g. inotail)