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/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/lwatch/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/lwatch.conf

       -i filename

       --input filename
                 read data from named fifo filename instead of /var/lib/lwatch/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/lwatch/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/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)