devel.reinikainen.net

Here are my steps for printing the /var/log/syslog file ON your X desktop.

1.

First get Eterm, aterm or some other terminal program that can do transparency. You
also need a program called ‘tail‘ that constantly reads a file for
changes. Unless you run root all the time (which you REALLY shouldn’t) you have to
have the sudo program, too. Debian GNU/Linux users can get these by doing
something like:

FreeBSD users might want to use the ports collection:

2.

Enter the sudo configuration (You HAVE to use this editor when modifying the
sudo configuration):

4.

Make sure you have the following lines in that (/etc/sudoers) file
(‘jani’ is my username, replace it with yours):

  # User alias specification
  User_Alias     ADMINS = jani
  # Cmnd alias specification
  Cmnd_Alias     BROWSE = /usr/bin/tail
  # User privilege specification
  root           ALL=(ALL) ALL
  jani           ALL=BROWSE

5.

If you want the logs to be printed the moment you log in to your X sever,
place this command in your window manager’s “startup programs” list or your
~/.xinitrc, otherwise you’ll always have to start it manually:

6.

Restart your X server and enjoy your new ’syslogged’ desktop! Check out
the manual page for syslog.conf and eterm for more
information.

Tags: linux, xfree

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 13:48 and is filed under Linux Desktop Solutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.