tail

Purpose

View the last few lines of a file.

Syntax

tail [options] file

Options

-N (where N is a number) displays last N lines.

-n N (where N is a number) displays last N lines.

-f reads the file at regular intervals and displays all new lines.

Description

The tail command displays lines from the end of the specified file. By default, tail displays the last 10 lines from the file. To view the last 24 lines from a file named /var/log/messages, type tail -24 /var/log/messages.