[Bug 1604511] Re: `tail -n N` no longer functions, prints all data in specified files instead of only the last N records

[Thomas Ward]

Turns out some shells are evil, and it was a failure in the system
telling me the correct number of lines (this isn't an Ubuntu SSH client
into the server)

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Title:
  `tail -n N` no longer functions, prints all data in specified files
  instead of only the last N records

Status in coreutils package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  While running nginx install/upgrade tests, I was trying to get the
  last 10 lines of the /var/log/apt/history.log file.  Naturally, I was
  trying to use 'tail' for this:

  tail -n 10 /var/log/apt/history.log

  Instead of only getting the last 10 lines of the file, I get the
  entire file spit out to me, as if I used 'cat' instead of 'tail'.
  This would appear to be a MAJOR problem if tail no longer functions as
  it should.

  This is on a fully-updated 16.10 server, by the way, so all the
  updates from the 'yakkety' repository are pulled in.

  ------

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
  Package: coreutils 8.25-2ubuntu2
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-31.50-generic 4.4.13
  Uname: Linux 4.4.0-31-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.2-0ubuntu1
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Tue Jul 19 13:39:31 2016
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-05-14 (65 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 16.10 "Yakkety Yak" - Alpha amd64 (20160514)
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=linux
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: coreutils
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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