Manual for Smart-Tail 1.1 beta

Content

Sorry, the manual is under construction.

The table of contents is a would be table of contents

Please ignore the table of contents and simply look through the manual and see want you can find.

Overview

The scenarios step by step

More tasks

All menus in detail

Frequently Ask Questions

2. Step by step (old)

1. Overview

1.1. Scenarios on how you can benefit

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2. The hands-on scenarios step by step

2.1.You want to monitor your appserver files

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2.2.You want to be kept uptodate with the error messages

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2.3.Your manager wants to see styled results in a webbrowser

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2.4.Your colleques want to do the same thing

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2.5.You want to analyse the results in another tool like Excel

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2.6. You want to display the logfiles in a table (sort by timestamps...)

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2.6. You want to display the logfiles in a table (sort by timestamps...)

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2.8. Your need help in building those complicated search expressions

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1.2. The difference to (Unix-) Tail

Handling

  • Both programm window (graphical user interface) and command line.
    Drag'n Drop of files or directories with a filter, progress bars and all this stuff.
  • Analysing ability what search expression or search result was found how often and where
  • Suspend / Resume of single or all files.
  • Status of every file, e.g "found", "retry", "tailing",...
  • Working with configurations (start, export, import).
    The programm uses configurations stored in files.

Filtering with search expressions.
(This was the original intend to develop this programm.)

  • Filtering with regular expressions. This implies "OR".
  • Filtering with "AND".
  • Searching over more than one line.
  • Searching between timestamps. (Provided there are timestamps in the files.)
  • "Dynamic" search. The progamm finds a search expression in one file and sends the result to a 2nd file. From this moment on the programm searches in the 2nd file for that expression. (To be accurate it appends the new search expression with "AND" to the 2nd file.)
    Remark
    A regular (search) expression is not neccesserily idendical with it's result. A regular expression can be something like "hello" but something like "\p{Upper}{2}\d{4}" too - 2 uppercase characters followed by 4 numeric characters (example "AB1212").

2. Step by step

2.1. Quick start

2.1.1. Tailing a file with the default configuration

If you are new and want to see a quick result...

  • Drag'n Drop files or directories into the programm window.
    (There is a filter available that is switched off by default.)
  • Optional: Type a search expression in the list "Search Expression".
    (You can use regular expressions and a "AND"-sign for "AND". Note the "Regular-Expression Assistant" under menu "Tools".)
  • Press Button "Start Tail" to start the tailing.
    This outputs the last 10 lines of each file by default and outputs more as the files are growing.

2.1.2. The default configuration - its behaviour

Unix-Tail option -n is set to 10
The last 10 lines of each file are shown. More lines of a file are shown as the file is growing.

Unix-Tail option -q is not set
Quite is not set. File headers are shown.

Unix-Tail option -r is set
Retry is set. If a file is not found the programm tries again and again to find and open it.

Unix-Tail option -s is set to 500
Sleep is set to 500 millisecond. It is the intervall the progamm uses to check wether a file has grown.

2.2. Search / filter options

2.2.1. General

The programm uses the regular expression implementation and synthax of java 1.4 and higher.

The two locations to give the search expressions are:

  • The textfield (list) in the toolbar of the main window.
    The last used expressions are shown as history.
  • "Settings Dialog" under menu "Tail"

2.2.2. Searching with "OR"

Regular expressions have a build-in support for "OR".

  • The syntax is "|".
  • Example for a regular expression: "Oktoberfest|Munich"
  • Example for a text to search: "This year at the Oktoberfest the beer consume..."
  • Search is successfull because the text contains "Oktoberfest".

2.2.3. Searching with "AND"

Regular expressions do not have a build-in support for "AND".

Smart-Tail therefor provides an own implementation for your convenience.

Two ways to give the search expressions:

  • The "Settings Dialog": Use the list and the button "AND".
    Each item in the list must be found in the text to search.
  • The textfield (list) in the toolbar of the main window.
    Use " AND ". Watch the spaces befor and after the "AND".

An example:

  • Regular expression: "Oktoberfest AND Munich" (textfield in toolbar).
  • 1st text to search: "This year at the Oktoberfest in Munich the beer consume...".
  • Search is successfull because the text contains "Oktoberfest" AND "Munich".
  • 2nd text to search: "This year at the Oktoberfest the beer consume..."
  • Search is not successfull because the text contains "Oktoberfest" only.

2.2.4. The Regular-Expression Assistant

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2.2.5. Searching over more than one line

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2.2.7. Searching in between a time range (timestamps)

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2.2.8. Using the "dynamic" search

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2.5. What was found how often and where (Statistics)

2.5.1. General

The programm can tell what was found how often and where. Menu "Tail", Dialog "Statistics".

  • What search expressions or search results are found.
  • How often they are found.
  • Where they are found.

The number of found results is limited. Why?

  • Depending on the search expression and the number of filtered files the programm can find very much results.
  • That much that there is not enough memory available (RAM). This, of course, depends on your computer too.

The user can set the maximum number of search results. In the Dialog "Statistics" there is a button "Details...". It opens a dialog "Maximum Number of Results" where the user can set the maximum number of results.

What will happen if the maximum number of results is reached?. The programm will not collect the results any longer but it counts how many results are found. A red label in the Dialog "Statistics" is displayed. It will tell the user that the maximum number has been reached. Furthermore it will tell the user the maximum number of results and compares it to the current number of results. (That one that is higher than the maximum number.)

Note: If a result (for example FileNotFoundException) is found in 2 different files it is counted as 2 (not 1).

The maximum number of results is not stored in the configuration. Instead it is stored as user preference on a particular computer.

2.5.2. Examples

Errors or exceptions in logfiles.

  • Possible regular (search) expression
    "(?i)\w*?exception\w*?|\w*?error\w*?".
  • Finds all words containing "exception" OR "error" ignoring upper and lower case.
  • Finds for example "NumberFormatException" or "UnknownHostError".

2.7. Programm start - parameters and command line

2.7.1. Programm start

The programm can be started in 2 different ways

  • Start with Java Webstart. This is the easiest way. Just click the start link at http://www.jfellow.net/tail/download.html.
  • Start manually by executing "java -jar tail.jar". See the list of parameters.

2.7.2. The parameters

If started manually (java -jar tail.jar) you can set different parameters.
Note: Don't mix up the parameters with the configuration of tail and grep. The configuration (for tail and grep) is read from and stored in a configuration file.

  • -nogui
    Example: java -jar tail.jar -nogui
    Start without programm window.
  • -tail or -t
    Example: java -jar tail.jar -tail
    Start in tail mode. Usefull in combination with "-nogui".
  • -grep or -g
    Example: java -jar tail.jar -grep
    Start in grep mode. Usefull in combination with "-nogui".
  • -verbose or -v
    Example: java -jar tail.jar -verbose
    Starts and prints the configruation.
  • -file or -f Example: java -jar tail.jar -file=c:/tail.props
    Loads the configuration (for "Tail" and "Grep") from a file at startup. Otherwise the programm loads the last used configuration.
    Default is: {user.home}/smarttail/config/Default Configuration.props
  • -logfile Example: java -jar tail.jar -logfile=c:/tail.log
    The progamm will write own messages there. Note this is not the output of "Tail" or "Grep".
    There is allways a default logfile the programm uses: "{user.home}/smarttail/tail_default.log".
    Usefull in combination with "-loglevel".
  • -loglevel
    Example: java -jar tail.jar -loglevel=WARNING -logfile=c:/tail.log
    See "-logfile". The default is WARNING
    Usefull in combination with "-logfile".
    Possible values are (sorted by "verbosity"):
    OFF
    SEVERE
    ERROR
    WARNING
    CONFIG
    INFO
    FINE
    FINER
    FINEST

Dialog Actions (Menu "File" > "Actions...")

What is this dialog for?
If Smart-Tail finds a certain search expression, lets say "VeryBadException" it can inform you or execute a command / programm. The actions are:

  • Open a pop-up window
  • Play a sound
  • Send a mail
  • Execute a command

In the action "Mail" and "Command" the following placeholders can be used.

  • {expression} the seach expression of this action
  • {result} result of the search
  • {file} file where the search expression was found

See further down for more on this.

How to use this dialog?
The list "Expressions" can contain several search expressions. Every search expression can trigger one or more actions:

An example:

  • Press the button "Add".
  • Type a search expression in the textfield "Expression".
    This manual contains more on (regular) search expressions: Tips and tricks, where to find a tutorial and a reference on regular expressions, how to test and build regular expressions, examples and more.
  • Press "Apply" to add the expression to the list.
  • Choose actions.

The settings in this dialog are included in the current configuration. This means if you open, close, export, import,... configurations the configurations do not loose the information about their actions.

The actions are also executed if you start Smart-Tail from the command line.

Checkbox "Actions ON"

If selected the actions are activated.

Action "Sound"

Checkbox "Sound"

If selected a sound is played every time the action was executed.

  • {expression} ... inserts the seach expression of this action
  • {result} ... inserts the result of the search
  • {file} ... inserts the file where the search expression was found

Example:
"notepad {file}"
Opens the file with notepad provided you are working under WINDOWS and notepad is installed.

Example:
net send /domain:computerOfColleque "{file}, {expression}, {result}"
Sends a message to another computer over the network provided you are working under WINDOWS.

Background knowledge:
System.getRuntime().exec(command) is executed.

Button "..." to the right of checkbox "Command"

Opens a file chooser to search for a programm.

Checkbox "Write Logfiles"

Every command / programm can show messages for the user. There are two types of messages:

  • Normal messages (std.out) and
  • Error messages (std.err).

You want to try it?
Open a command shell and type: "ping localhost"
Smart tail would write the output of this command to a file.

You find the logfiles in the directory:
{user.home}/smarttail/commandLogs
You will find the value for {user.home} in the dialog Menu "Help" > "System Info"

Each time a command / programm is executed two logfiles are created: One for std.out and one for std.err.

All logfiles are deleted if a new "Tail" or "Grep" is started.


Build from: 20051113
Author: Tom Wiedenhoeft, tom@smart-tail.com