lnav.1

.\" Some roff macros, for reference:
.\" .nh        disable hyphenation
.\" .hy        enable hyphenation
.\" .ad l      left justify
.\" .ad b      justify to both left and right margins
.\" .nf        disable filling
.\" .fi        enable filling
.\" .br        insert line break
.\" .sp <n>    insert n+1 empty lines
.\" for manpage-specific macros, see man(7)
.\" Define macros
.de Vb \" Begin verbatim text                                                                                                                                                       
.ft CW
.nf
.ne \\$1
..
.de Ve \" End verbatim text
.ft R
.fi
..
.TH LNAV "1" "April 2024"
.SH NAME
lnav \- log file viewer for the terminal
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B lnav 
[options] [logfile1 logfile2 ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The Logfile Navigator, lnav, is a log file viewer for the terminal.
Given a set of files/directories, lnav will:
.TP
- decompress as needed;
.TP
- detect their format;
.TP
- merge the files together by time into a single view;
.TP
- tail the files, follow renames, find new files in directories;
.TP
- build an index of errors and warnings;
.TP
- pretty-print JSON-lines.
.SH KEY BINDINGS
.TP
?
View/leave the online help text.
.TP
q
Quit the program.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-h\fR
Print help and exit
.TP
\fB\-H\fR
Display the internal help text.
.TP
\fB\-I\fR path
Add the given configuration directory to the search path.
.TP
\fB\-W\fR
Print warnings related to lnav's configuration.
.TP
\fB\-u\fR
Update formats installed from git repositories.
.TP
\fB\-d\fR file
Write debug messages to the given file.
.TP
\fB\-V\fR
Print version information.
.TP
\fB\-r\fR
Recursively load files from the given directories.
.TP
\fB\-R\fR
Load older rotated log files as well.
.TP
\fB\-c\fR cmd
Execute a command after the files have been loaded.
.TP
\fB\-f\fR path
Execute the commands in the given file.
.TP
\fB\-e\fR cmd
Execute a shell command-line.
.TP
\fB\-t\fR
Prepend timestamps to the lines of data being read in
on the standard input.
.TP
\fB\-n\fR
Run without the curses UI.  (headless mode)
.TP
\fB\-N\fR
Do not open the default syslog file if no files are given.
.TP
\fB\-q\fR
Quiet mode.  Do not print the log messages after executing all of the commands.
.SS "Optional arguments:"
.TP
logfile1
The log files or directories to view.  If a
directory is given, all of the files in the
directory will be loaded.
.SH MANAGEMENT-MODE OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-i\fR
Install the given format files in the $HOME/.lnav/formats/installed directory
and exit.
.TP
\fB\-m\fR
Switch to the management command-line mode.  This mode is
used to work with lnav's configuration.
.TP
\fB\-C\fR
Check the configuration and exit.  The log format files will be loaded and
checked.  Any files given on the command-line will be loaded checked to make
sure they match a log format.
.SH EXAMPLES
To load and follow the syslog file:
.PP
.Vb 1
\&    lnav
.Ve
.PP
To load all of the files in /var/log:
.PP
.Vb 1
\&    lnav /var/log
.Ve
.PP
To watch the output of make with timestamps prepended:
.PP
.Vb 1
\&    make 2>&1 | lnav \-t
.Ve
.SH AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org>
for the Debian system (but may be used by others).