wtf is log.io?

Log.io lets you watch your application's log files update live in a web browser, so you can see what's happening across your systems in real time without SSH-ing into individual servers to tail files. The project works through two pieces. First, small programs called "harvesters" run on the machines where your log files live. They watch those files for new entries and send any new log messages to a central server over a standard network connection. The server then pushes those messages out to any browser tabs that are connected, updating them instantly. In the web interface, you organize logs by "streams" (which you define by mapping file paths to a friendly name) and "nodes" (the machines they come from). You pick which stream and node combination you want to watch, and the messages appear in a screen widget where you can also search through them. This would appeal to anyone running multiple servers or services who wants a single dashboard for spotting errors as they happen. For example, if you have a web server, a database, and a background job processor each writing their own logs, you could configure harvesters on all three and then flip between their streams in one browser window instead of keeping three terminal sessions open. The server also exposes a simple text-based protocol, meaning third-party tools or custom scripts can send log messages directly without using the built-in harvester. This could be handy if you want to pipe in logs from something that doesn't write to standard log files. The project is written in CoffeeScript and built on Node.js. It was originally developed by Narrative Science and is released under the Apache 2.0 license.