------------------------------------------------------------------------ tail display lines towards the bottom of the file ------------------------------------------------------------------------ tail is a useful utility, especially if you are keeping tabs on a process that is producing output. $ tail -n 5 file1 #display last 5 lines of file1 $ tail -5 file1 #further simplified $ tail fiele1 #default last 10 files (default value) $ tail -f /var/log/messages #monitor "messages" file $ tail -f /tmp/debug.log --pid=2575 #stop monitoring when program ID 2572 finishes $ tail -n +2 file1 #display lines in file1 starting at 2 #useful for skipping header $ tail -r file1 #display files in reverse order (first line last etc)