NAME

       lwatch  — syntax highlighting for syslog/syslog-ng file

SYNOPSIS

       lwatch  [-C  filename]   [--config  filename]   [-i  filename]   [--input  filename]   [-o
       filename]   [--output  filename]   [-sdOhv]   [--show-unparsed]   [--daemon]   [--omit-rc]
       [--help]

DESCRIPTION

       Lwatch  is  a  log colorizer. It reads syslog/syslog-ng data from named fifo or from stdin
       and displays colored logs into stdout.

       Lwatch  is  highly  user-customizable.  It  reads  configuration  data   from   the   file
       /etc/lwatch.conf or (if given) from the file provided with option -C

       The   way  it  works  is  simple.  It  reads  a  line  from  input  (build-in  default  is
       /var/lib/syslog.fifo), splits it into four parts: date, hostname, service name (with  PID,
       if available) and real message. Each part has its own default color. You can redefine them
       in  configuration   file.   Default   colors   as   the   same   as   in   loco(1)   [see:
       http://www.zjuul.net/~jules/loco/].  But  lwatch is not only a static log colorizer. It is
       something more. It can colorize your logs any way you wish. You are  able  to  set  a  new
       color for any part (date, host, service, message) using regexp based patterns.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

       Lwatch accepts some command line options. Command line options have precedence over values
       from configuration file.

       -C filename

       --config filename
                 read config from filename instead of /etc/lwatch.conf

       -i filename

       --input filename
                 read data from named fifo filename instead of /var/lib/syslog.fifo

       -o filename

       --output filename
                 write colored logs to filename instead stdout

       -s

       --show-unparsed
                 show unparsed lines like `last message repeated 5 times' or `--- MARK ---'

       -d

       --daemon  run as daemon, detach from control terminal, move to background

       -O

       --omit-rc do not read values from config file

       -h

       --help    show help about runtime option

       -v

       --version show version and copyright notices

RUNNING

       Preferred way to run lwatch is to read syslog messages from named fifo  or  from  standard
       input.

       If you use syslog you really want to read messages from named fifo.  To do it, put a line:

       *.*                                 |/var/lib/syslog.fifo

       in  your syslog.conf. Create appropriate fifo and restart syslog, then run lwatch. You can
       also run lwatch before starting syslog.  If you don't know how to create  named  fifo  see
       mknod(1) for details.

       Remember:

          •  fifo must exist

          •  proper name must be put in /etc/lwatch.conf or given with -i command line option

       In syslog-ng you can run lwatch directly from syslog, i.e.:

       log { source(src); destination(console_all);};
       destination console_all {program("/usr/bin/lwatch -i- -o/dev/tty11"); };

       Lwatch  does not support reading from regular files. If you really need this functionality
       use following command:

       tail -f /path/to/filename | /usr/bin/lwatch -i-
       It could be subject to change in the future.

RESOURCES

          •  http://sf.net/projects/lwatch

          •  http://freshmeat.net/projects/lwatch/

COPYRIGHT

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
       the  GNU  General  Public  License  as  published  by the Free Software Foundation; either
       version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

       Regular expression support is provided by the PCRE library package, which is  open  source
       software,  written by Philip Hazel, and copyright by the University of Cambridge, England.
       This library is available at: ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/

NOTE FROM AUTHOR

       I have written this tool for my own needs because perl tools, however  flexible,  eated  a
       lot  of  memory  and  CPU.   I  have  found  it useful and I share it with the Open Source
       Community. But still, developing of this software is driven by my own needs. So, you could
       expect next release in a year or two ;)

       It  would  be really nice if you could find some time and spare it for rating this project
       on FreshMeat (see RESOURCES). Comments are welcome too. I cannot promise that I  will  add
       new  features  to  lwatch  immediately  but any positive feedback will raise my motivation
       level up.

       Thank you in advance for your time.

SEE ALSO

       lwatch.conf(5)

                                                                                        lwatch(1)