[linux] How to 'grep' a continuous stream?

you certainly won't succeed with

tail -f /var/log/foo.log |grep --line-buffered string2search

when you use "colortail" as an alias for tail, eg. in bash

alias tail='colortail -n 30'

you can check by type alias if this outputs something like tail isan alias of colortail -n 30. then you have your culprit :)

Solution:

remove the alias with

unalias tail

ensure that you're using the 'real' tail binary by this command

type tail

which should output something like:

tail is /usr/bin/tail

and then you can run your command

tail -f foo.log |grep --line-buffered something

Good luck.

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