TailStreamer

TailStreamer is a browser-based log viewer. It's tail -f for the web. Built on top of the Spring Framework, it uses SockJS to stream log updates in real-time to your browser.

Requirements

To run TailStreamer, you need:

a Java Runtime Environment - Java 7 or later.

To build TailStreamer, you need:

a Java Development Kit - Java 7 or later.
Node.js.

Building

Download and install Node.js
Go to your TailStreamer directory
Run npm install to download the necessary JavaScript components
Start the build by running ./gradlew installApp.

This will download Gradle, then build TailStreamer. The binaries will be under build/install/tailstreamer/bin.

Usage

By default, TailStreamer runs on port 8080:

tailstreamer /var/log/httpd-access.log

You can specify an alternate port with the --server.port argument:

tailstreamer --server.port=8000 /var/log/httpd-access.log

You can also specify the server port in application.yml:

server:
    port: 9000

Configuration

TailStreamer is configured using YAML. Upon startup, it will look for a file called tailstreamer.yml and read configuration properties from there.

For a full reference of available configuration options, see the wiki page at https://github.com/joeattardi/tailstreamer/wiki/YAML-Configuration-Reference.

Security

By default, TailStreamer is accessible by anyone. You can restrict access by requiring a username and password. Authentication is configured in tailstreamer.yml. For security purposes, user passwords are stored hashed.

The first step is getting the hashed password. Run TailStreamer with the --encryptPassword option to generate the hashed password:

tailstreamer --encryptPassword myPassword

The hashed password will be displayed:

Copy this password to your clipboard, then edit application.yml and add it under auth: users:

auth:
    users:
        - username: joe
          password: $2a$10$mAlhv2g41/NObkGOSVLvO.ayoFdN7kqnV61Km8PSJ8qjcYnK5q2ke

Now, when starting TailStreamer, you will be prompted to log in before viewing the log.