Installation

Installation

Requires Node.js 22.12 or newer for the npm install. Docker and the standalone binaries bring their own runtime.

npm

npm i -g @hbenali/frontail
frontail /var/log/syslog

Then open http://127.0.0.1:9001.

Docker

Images are published to Docker Hub and GHCR (multi-arch: amd64 and arm64):

docker run -d -p 9001:9001 -v /var/log:/log:ro hbenali/frontail /log/syslog
# or
docker run -d -p 9001:9001 -v /var/log:/log:ro ghcr.io/hbenali/frontail /log/syslog

See Docker and Kubernetes for Compose, container-log streaming and Kubernetes.

Standalone binaries

Binaries (no Node.js needed) for Linux, macOS and Windows, amd64 and arm64, are attached to every GitHub release.

macOS binaries are unsigned, so Gatekeeper blocks the first launch. Run once:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./frontail-*

(or right-click → Open).

Running as a daemon

frontail -d --pid-path ./frontail.pid --log-path ./frontail.log /var/log/syslog

All options, including --config, containers, --journal and --ssh, are carried over to the daemon. Basic Auth credentials are handed to it through environment variables, so they never appear in ps.

Upgrading

Check the release notes. Notable upgrade notes:

• 2.31: browsers may only open the log socket from the page's own host. Behind a proxy that rewrites Host, add --allowed-origin https://your-public-host (see Security).
• 2.29: requires Node 22.12+.
• 2.28 to 2.30: log colorizing and indentation were accidentally off by default. Fixed in 2.31.