ubuntu-ca Digest, Vol 35, Issue 25, question (Eugene Cormier)

[Gordon Dey]

> From: Eugene Cormier <eugene.cormier at gmail.com>

> exist?? (maybe as well it would be nice to know what files were
> requested).....for now I've been keeping my access.log and error.log
> open in gedit which notifies me when things have changed, but on this
> machine xfce+gnomesysmon+gedit is really chugging....plus I know I

Five thoughts:

1. Look at statistics with tools like "top" and/or "free". Then either turn off 
  the X11 servers or bring the box up without the X11. (Try rcconf as a tool 
for easily managing services to startup.) Compare statistics again. I think 
you'll find there's more performance possible without X11 clients and server 
trying to share the 128 MB with apache2 et al.

2. Do you access the box locally? If so, you can add targets like "/dev/tty8" 
in /etc/syslog.conf and then use the alt-F8 or similar sequence to flip between 
screens to watch stuff in real-time.

3. A similar approach, that would work within a ssh session, is the venerable 
"tail" command with the "-f" argument. Use screen or use multiple ssh sessions, 
either case, have "tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log" in one and another for 
the error.log in the other. A shell+tail is low overhead and it will scroll in 
real-time. Add sessions as necessary.

4. Watch out for log-rotate; it's job is to swap the log files regularly, and 
if you have an image of one open, you won't notice when it's unlinked...except 
there doesn't seem to be any more entries after 6:30 some morning! :)

5. Another utility that may work for you is logcheck; it can package up and 
email you that what it's told "interesting" looks like. This can be done more 
frequently during busy times and less when you're not there to look at them, 
just tweak the crontab to suit.

Gord.