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 
Article Number: 508
Posted: Thu, Feb 21, 2019 5:58 PM
Last Updated: Thu, Feb 21, 2019 5:58 PM
Online URL: http://kb.ictbanking.net/article.php?id=508