ctail ☆

« Back to VersTracker

Description:
Tool for operating tail across large clusters of machines

Type: Formula | Latest Version: 0.1.0@0 | Tracked Since: Dec 17, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Devops

Tags: logs monitoring ssh cluster devops

Install: brew install ctail

About:
ctail is a utility designed to aggregate and display log files from multiple servers in a cluster simultaneously. It functions similarly to the standard 'tail -f' command but operates across SSH connections to various machines. This provides a unified, real-time view of distributed logs, simplifying monitoring and debugging for system administrators.

Key Features:

Aggregates logs from multiple servers into a single stream
Uses SSH for secure connections to remote machines
Filters and highlights specific log entries
Supports colorized output for better readability

Use Cases:

Real-time monitoring of application logs across a distributed infrastructure
Debugging issues by correlating events from multiple services simultaneously

Alternatives:

ts – Part of moreutils, adds timestamps but lacks distributed log aggregation.
lnav – Advanced log file analyzer and viewer, primarily for local files.

License: Apache-2.0

Dependencies: apr, apr-util

Bottles available for: arm64_tahoe, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_ventura, arm64_monterey, arm64_big_sur, sonoma, ventura, monterey, big_sur, catalina, arm64_linux, x86_64_linux

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Oct 1, 2023 4:10am		0	VERSION_BUMP	9e6ca043