Wall-mounted dedicated tablet showing karaf log:tail - log won't update

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

@leif

I’m trying to make a tablet show the karaf log:tail output at all times, so that I can mount it on my wall. It needs to reconnect an log in and start showing the log automatically, so that it doesn’t add a maintenance tax. (The whole point of home automation is to automate things, not add more manual steps).

But on-the-other-hand, it’s home automation, not IT automation.

Why do you need to get the logs from Karaf? Can’t you use Frontail on the openhab.log and events.log? Then you can put the browser into kiosk mode and there you have it.

@leif

When I start the batch file, putty successfully connects to karaf, and displays the last full page of logs… and then it just sits there.

I can’t say for sure but because you are kicking this off from a bat file there may be some issue with receiving updates.

@leif

This tells me perhaps it’s some interaction with the karaf console?

Perhaps, but since they both have the same information why add the complexity of needing to log into the karaf console?

@leif

It’s not really a workaround though as tail is not a good permanent log viewer, for one it lacks the color coding.

You should look into multitail.

[multitail] color scheme for openhab logs

I created a custom color scheme for the linux tool multitail to make the openhab logs more readable. You can find all information here: And here is a screenshot about how it looks. [image] Feel free to give any kind of feedback.

Here is my Ansible playbook for installing multitail and Christoph’s color scheme.

---

- name: Install prerequisites
  apt:
    name: "{{ item }}"
    update_cache: no
  become: yes
  with_items:
    - libncurses5
    - libncurses5-dev
    - libncursesw5
    - libncursesw5-dev

- name: Create multitail folder
  file:
    path: "{{ multitail_home }}"
    state: directory
    mode: a+rwx
  become: yes

- name: Clone multitail
  git:
    repo: https://github.com/flok99/multitail.git
    force: yes
    dest: "{{ multitail_home }}"

- name: Build and install multitail
  make:
    chdir: "{{ multitail_home }}"
    target: install
  become: yes

- name: Add multitail to the path
  lineinfile:
    path: /home/rich/.config/fish/config.fish
    line: set -gx PATH /opt/local/bin $PATH

- name: Copy the default multitail.conf
  copy:
    src:  /opt/local/etc/multitail.conf.new
    dest: "{{ multitail_conf_file }}"
    remote_src: yes
  become: yes

- name: Add check_mail:0
  lineinfile:
    path: "{{ multitail_conf_file }}"
    line: "check_mail:0"
  become: yes

- name: Clone the openHAB color scheme
  git:
    repo: "{{ openhab_color_url }}"
    dest: /tmp/multitail-scheme-openhab

- name: Copy color scheme into multitail.conf
  shell: cat /tmp/multitail-scheme-openhab/multitail-scheme-openhab.conf >> {{ multitail_conf_file }}
  become: yes

- name: Remove line with path to openhab logs
  lineinfile:
    path: "{{ multitail_conf_file }}"
    line: scheme:openhab:/var/log/openhab2/
    state: absent
  become: yes

- name: Add path to openhab logs
  lineinfile:
    path: "{{ multitail_conf_file }}"
    line: scheme:openhab:{{ openhab_logs_dir }}
  become: yes

NOTE: I run in Docker so the log files are not in the default locations for me.