Monitor logfiles and command output on AIX using multitail.

Most applications, like operating systems, have their own logs files. Sometimes, we need to see them at the same time to troubleshoot issues. Here’s when multitail (http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/) can help us.
This tool can be installed on an AIX box. You can download it from http://www.perzl.org/aix/index.php?n=Main.Multitail

First, check that you need some packages dependencies:

Package dependencies:
    ncurses >= 5.6

Once we have downloaded multitail and its dependencies packages, we’re going to installed them:

(lpar):[root] /tmp -> ls -ltr *.rpm
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system      3511978 Nov 18 11:12 ncurses-5.9-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system       387633 Nov 18 11:12 ncurses-devel-5.9-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system       182153 Nov 18 11:17 multitail-6.2.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

(lpar):[root] /tmp -> rpm -Uvh ncurses-5.9-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
ncurses                     ##################################################

(lpar):[root] /tmp -> rpm -Uvh ncurses-devel-5.9-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
error: failed dependencies:
        /opt/freeware/bin/bash is needed by ncurses-devel-5.9-1

Wait a minute, ncurses-devel failed because needs ‘bash’ packege as dependencies, but in our environment we don’t use bash, so we can ignore this error executing again the same command with ‘–nodeps’ options:

(lpar):[root] /tmp -> rpm -Uvh ncurses-devel-5.9-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm --nodeps
ncurses-devel               ##################################################

Now, let’s install multitail package:

(lpar):[root] /tmp -> rpm -Uvh  multitail-6.2.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
multitail                   ##################################################

To verify the installation:

(lpar):[root] /tmp -> rpm -qa|egrep 'ncurses-|multitail'
multitail-6.2.1-1
ncurses-devel-5.9-1
ncurses-5.9-1

Once it has finished let’s play with multitail