CLI Machines Docker Logs

ed machines docker logs

Streams one container's logs to your terminal.

ed machines docker logs [--tail <n>] [--follow] <machine> <container>

Arguments

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
<machine>	machine name, ssh alias, id, or any unambiguous prefix	required	Which machine to ask.
<container>	container name or id, full or short	required	Which container's logs to read. Passed to docker as given.

Options

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
--tail	integer, 0 or more	200	How many trailing lines to show. 0 shows none, which is what you want with --follow.
--follow, -f	flag	off	Keep streaming until interrupted.
--help, -h	flag	off	Print the help for this command on stdout and exit 0.

There is no --json here, and no --since or --until: this is a passthrough of docker's own output.

$ ed machines tuf docker logs lobe-chat --tail 3
2026-08-08T07:38:18.342112977Z Warning: Cannot polyfill `DOMMatrix`, rendering may be broken.
2026-08-08T07:38:18.342116199Z Warning: Cannot polyfill `ImageData`, rendering may be broken.
2026-08-08T07:38:18.342119077Z Warning: Cannot polyfill `Path2D`, rendering may be broken.

Examples

ed machines tuf docker logs lobe-chat
ed machines tuf docker logs tuf-api --tail 50
ed machines tuf docker logs open-webui --tail 0 --follow

Behaviour notes

The remote command is docker logs --timestamps --tail <n> [--follow] <container>. Timestamps are always on and cannot be turned off, which is the one way this differs from typing docker logs yourself.

Output is streamed line by line as it arrives, with the container's stdout going to your stdout and its stderr going to your stderr, so redirecting one does not swallow the other. There is no timeout: --follow runs until you interrupt it or the container stops.

This is one of the two verbs on this page that propagate the remote exit code instead of mapping it into the 0 to 4 table. A container that does not exist is docker's error, on stderr, with docker's status, usually 1. --tail is validated before anything is sent: a negative value exits 2, though you have to write --tail=-1 to reach the check because --tail -1 is read as a missing value and exits 2 for that reason instead.

$ ed machines tuf docker logs open-webui --tail=-1
error: --tail cannot be negative
hint: pass 0 or more

Where to go next

• ed machines docker, the rest of this group
• All ed commands