Tailspin – To See More Clearly in Your Logs

If you own a server, whether for business or self-hosting, you’ve likely had to examine your server’s log files at some point.

Logs are beneficial because they provide insights into what’s happening and why things might not always work as expected. However, the presentation of logs in SSH, via the terminal, is often lackluster.

Fortunately, tools like Tailspin exist to inject some life into this process, preventing sysadmin burnout and the drastic shift to rearing muskrats and making pâté from them.

Tailspin can display logs in any format without specific configuration, highlighting important information such as numbers, dates, IP addresses, UUIDs, URLs, and more. It integrates seamlessly with other commands, functioning like the ‘less’ command for searching or filtering logs.

If desired, you can customize Tailspin to highlight regex patterns in your preferred style.

Installing Tailspin is straightforward. Simply execute the appropriate command for your distribution:

# Homebrew
brew install tailspin

# Cargo
cargo install tailspin

# Archlinux
pacman -S tailspin

# Nix
nix-shell -p tailspin

# NetBSD
pkgin install tailspin

# FreeBSD
pkg install tailspin

This installation will enhance your daily work experience.