Viewing logs when they're scrambled looking..

mike2010 · 01-16-2010, 09:27 AM

Instead of viewing logs via SSH / PUTTY.

I like to download them first to my PC..and view em there..so that I dont miss any lines or anything.

Some of the logs show up as normal text.. others looks all scrambled & i'm guessing encrypted ?

How do I find a good log viewer, to decrypt the scrambled looking ones ?

I've just been using WordPad for the most part.

This is a super noobish question i'm sure.

Dave_Devnull · 01-16-2010, 09:39 AM

1. What are the full names of the log files you have downloaded?
2. Don't use wordpad. Apart from using different line endings to *nixes, it will 'helpfully' try to deciper character combinations for formatting, resulting in a mess of an output ;-)
Try the excellent free 'notepad++' but set it to 'unix' under the preferences.

I suspect you may be looking at gzipped log files (eg /var/log/mail.info.1.gz etc) and this in combination with wordpad is giving you the impression of encrypted output.

Web31337 · 01-16-2010, 11:36 AM

tail -n 500 /var/log/yourlogfile | less in PuTTY and you won't miss anything

tail --help for details.

mike2010 · 01-18-2010, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Web31337

tail -n 500 /var/log/yourlogfile | less in PuTTY and you won't miss anything

tail --help for details.

My version of Putty doesn't scroll up though..whatever is on the screen, thats it.

Is there a secret way to scroll up ? I believe I have version 0.57 Putty.

Tinkster · 01-18-2010, 02:22 PM

Use "less" as a pager. And there are certain logs like wtemp,
lastlog, faillog that have binary content - not because they're
encrypted, but because they're meant to be used by a program
like "last" that will show their contents in human readable form.

Cheers,
Tink

mike2010 · 01-18-2010, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tinkster

Use "less" as a pager. And there are certain logs like wtemp,
lastlog, faillog that have binary content - not because they're
encrypted, but because they're meant to be used by a program
like "last" that will show their contents in human readable form.

Cheers,
Tink

Thats amazing, I was just about to post how to view 'lastlog' as all I saw where come scrambled characters.

How can I view that ? I running Plesk as well. 9.2.3

I guess I need to use last to view lastlog ? how is it possible.

much appreciated.

Tinkster · 01-18-2010, 03:42 PM

I have no idea how plesk interacts with the system - sorry;
never seen or used it.

chrism01 · 01-18-2010, 05:05 PM

http://linux.die.net/man/8/lastlog
http://linux.die.net/man/8/faillog
http://linux.die.net/man/1/who

mike2010 · 01-19-2010, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

http://linux.die.net/man/8/lastlog
http://linux.die.net/man/8/faillog
http://linux.die.net/man/1/who

Can I just have the command to view lastlog ?

ls -s ?

Dave_Devnull · 01-19-2010, 09:07 AM

Or change the number of 'lines of scrollback' in Putty (hint: Catagory > Window > Control Of Scrollback in Window)

Tinkster · 01-19-2010, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Can I just have the command to view lastlog ?

The command to view lastlog is last, kind of unsurprisingly.

But looking at the man-pages should have told you that?

chrism01 · 01-19-2010, 05:17 PM

According to that man page the cmd is lastlog ...

Quote:

lastlog formats and prints the contents of the last login log /var/log/lastlog file. The login-name, port, and last login time will be printed. The default (no flags) causes lastlog entries to be printed, sorted by their order in /etc/passwd.