First show system events. Second command show events inherent to the process of booting kernel.

tail /var/log/messages
tail /var/log/dmesg

Find all files with ‘.log’ extention and make an bzip archive

find /var/log -name '*.log' | tar cv --files-from=- | bzip2 > log.tar.bz2

View in real time what is added to a file. -f stands for Follow

tail -f /var/log/messages

The last command shows a history of logins…

last

This command will let you watch a log file for changes as soon as they happen.

tail -f log/development.log