tail with highlight for matching lines with color

colortail.sh

color_tail() { local file="$1"; shift; local awk_cmd="$(count=0; for i in "$@"; do ((count++)); printf '/%s/ {print "\\033[3%sm",$0,"\\033[39m"; next; }\n' "$i" "$count"; done; echo "{ print \$0 }")"; tail -n100 -f "$file" | eval awk \'"${awk_cmd}"\'; }

Intent:

Tail a log file and highlight keyword lines

Usage:

This is intended to be used as a bash profile function. Please add it to ~/.bashrc or equivalent environment files. You can test it by simply copying and pasting it into an interactive terminal session. You may have any number of hightlight words, but only one file.

color_tail <file> <highlight_word1> [<hightlight_word2>...] 

Example:

color_tail /var/log/messages CRYPTO_KEY SERVICE_STOP