on 10:59 Tue 01 Mar, Jason Hsu (jhsu802...@jasonhsu.com) wrote: > I'm using Debian in a command-line-only installation for running a > firewall/server. > > I know that I'm supposed to use the messages I see every time I enter > a command for troubleshooting purposes. But if the output is too > long, then the first messages scroll out of sight, and that makes it > impossible to properly troubleshoot when I don't know what I'm doing. > Is there a way to get the output to temporarily stop so I can read it > all if I wish?
As others have noted: command | less Or an alternate pager, from least to most featured: pg, more, most, dog. You can specify this with the PAGER environment variable or under /etc/alternatives/pager (see update-alternatives). You can dump output to a file. Several varaints: command >myfile # save standard output command >myfile 2>&1 # save standard output & standard error command >myfile 2>myfile.err # separate stdout/stderr command >/dev/null # discard stdout (stderr displayed to terminal) command | tee myfile # view output, save stdout to 'myfile' command 2>&1 | tee myfile # view output, both stdout & stderr to 'myfile' Your terminal's scrollbar should be generally useful. Set a sufficiently large scrollback buffer. Page-up / page-down, may work in some terminals and/or console. The 'script' command can be used to record interactive sessions. Depending on the amount of screen-painting going on (ncurses / full-screen terminal programs such as top, etc.), this may not be too readable. 'scriptreplay' may make for a saner output. Using 'screen' one of the benefits is a scrollback buffer. Very handy. For noninteractive comamnds, where I want to massage the output but don't know what filters I need to use immediately (or want to see intermediate results): command | vim - # read stdout into vim for interactive editing. I can then annotate or use futher regex substitutions or commands to clean up / modify data. Mostly I just pipe output to less or redirect to a file as needed. -- Dr. Ed Morbius, Chief Scientist / | Robot Wrangler / Staff Psychologist | When you seek unlimited power Krell Power Systems Unlimited | Go to Krell! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110301201028.gc5...@altaira.krellpowersys.exo