what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

[hugocoolens]

I have been a longtime Debian user, so switching to Ubuntu makes me look now and then for equivalents to get certain things done. One thing I'm missing is the file /var/log/messages, I use this when attaching new hardware to see what's happening: tail -f /var/log/messages
To my surprise Ubuntu doesn't seem to have this file, how can I get the same info I got on my Debian-machines using Ubuntu?

thanks in advance
hugo

[quarkslot]

Re: what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

This is a guess but I think the command dmesg will show the contents of the system log.

So dmesg |tail -f should give you what you want.

I'm sure someone will correct me if this is wrong.

Not quite the answer but (I hope) close enough.

[hugocoolens]

Re: what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

This is a guess but I think the command dmesg will show the contents of the system log.

So dmesg |tail -f should give you what you want.

I'm sure someone will correct me if this is wrong.

Not quite the answer but (I hope) close enough.

The pipe-mechanism doesn't seem this work this way :-(

[vinnywright]

Re: what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

it will if you put the space between |&tail

VINNY

[Snowhog]

Re: what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

dmesg | tail -f

Note the spaces.

[quarkslot]

Re: what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

Strange, the space is not necessary on my system.

[Hoder]

Re: what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

Edit file: /etc/rsyslog.d/50-default.conf

Change:
#*.=info;*.=notice;*.=warn;\
# auth,authpriv.none;\
# cron,daemon.none;\
# mail,news.none -/var/log/messages

To:

*.=info;*.=notice;*.=warn;\
auth,authpriv.none;\
cron,daemon.none;\
mail,news.none -/var/log/messages

Logging to /var/log/messages is back.

[hugocoolens]

Re: what's the equivalent for Debian /var/log/messages in Ubuntu?

it will if you put the space between |&tail

VINNY

It makes no difference whether I'm using a space there or not, it just gives me the
last lines of dmesg but not a "live version" like tail -f /var/log/messages does

regards,
hugo