Show HN: Tail out log files from multiple remote hosts with one command

So it&#x27;s basically:<p><pre><code> tail -f &lt;(ssh -t host &#x27;tail -f &#x2F;var&#x2F;log&#x2F;sth&#x27;) &lt;(ssh -t host2 &#x27;tail -f &#x2F;var&#x2F;log&#x2F;sth&#x27;) </code></pre> + I need to install nodejs?

For another display, there&#x27;s also multitail (<a href="http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vanheusden.com&#x2F;multitail&#x2F;</a>) that you can run with a custom command, such as<p><pre><code> ssh host tail -f &#x2F;path&#x2F;to&#x2F;log </code></pre> (which is the command that remtail seems to be doing)

I use pssh [1].<p><pre><code> pssh -H h1 -H h2 -P &quot;tail -n 1000 &#x2F;var&#x2F;log&#x2F;x.log&quot; </code></pre> It is very easy to install on every platform since is on most package managers.<p>[1]: <a href="http://linux.die.net/man/1/pssh" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;linux.die.net&#x2F;man&#x2F;1&#x2F;pssh</a>

<p><pre><code> &gt; You can optionally use a credentials file in ~&#x2F;.remtail.json of this format: </code></pre> What ever happened to just using .netrc?<p><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/manual/html_node/The-_002enetrc-File.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gnu.org&#x2F;software&#x2F;inetutils&#x2F;manual&#x2F;html_node&#x2F;The-_...</a>

Good implementation but not for my tastes. node.js for this purpose? I think it&#x27;s a bit heavy in this case.<p>mssh or cluster ssh is also effective in this manner, with the added flexibility of ssh terminals.

I&#x27;ve also used dsh[1] to accomplish the same thing. Never tried to use username and password for this though so that actually may be more of a pain with dsh. Also tailing multiple files on the same host is pretty cool.<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.tecmint.com/using-dsh-distributed-shell-to-run-linux-commands-across-multiple-machines/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tecmint.com&#x2F;using-dsh-distributed-shell-to-run-li...</a>

In my company, we have hundred machines and tailing done with ansible. If we want customize the log view, we can simply edit the playbook. I think it is very handy compared to we need additional npm package (and not to mention additional effort for customization).

If you want to send that tail output to your browser here is a little app I released last week:<p><a href="http://dougmart.in/projects/pagepipe" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dougmart.in&#x2F;projects&#x2F;pagepipe</a>