What is the command to display the last TEN lines in file: /var/log/syslog

Solution 1:

Try

tail /var/log/syslog

Example:

$ tail /var/log/syslog
Mar 21 11:41:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 15 times
Mar 21 11:42:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 20 times
Mar 21 11:43:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 16 times
Mar 21 11:44:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 14 times
Mar 21 11:45:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 11 times
Mar 21 11:46:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 16 times
Mar 21 11:47:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 15 times
Mar 21 11:48:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 14 times
Mar 21 11:49:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 16 times
Mar 21 11:50:32  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 22 times

For default, tail shows last 10 lines of input file. To display more, there is an option -n.
From man tail:

-n, --lines=K
       output the last K lines, instead of the last 10; or use -n +K to
       output lines starting with the Kth

For example:

$ tail -n 15 /var/log/syslog
Mar 21 11:56:45 Karimov-Danil named[1122]: error (network unreachable) resolving './DNSKEY/IN': 2001:dc3::35#53
Mar 21 11:56:45 Karimov-Danil named[1122]: error (network unreachable) resolving './NS/IN': 2001:dc3::35#53
Mar 21 11:56:48 Karimov-Danil named[1122]: managed-keys-zone: Unable to fetch DNSKEY set '.': timed out
Mar 21 11:56:51 Karimov-Danil whoopsie[1194]: online
Mar 21 11:57:54  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 17 times
Mar 21 11:58:58  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 16 times
Mar 21 12:00:03  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 10 times
Mar 21 12:01:03  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 16 times
Mar 21 12:02:03  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 10 times
Mar 21 12:03:03  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 17 times
Mar 21 12:04:03  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 14 times
Mar 21 12:05:03  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 17 times
Mar 21 12:06:03  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 13 times
Mar 21 12:07:04  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 16 times
Mar 21 12:08:04  whoopsie[1194]: last message repeated 16 times

Solution 2:

tail is the way to go, however in case for whatever reason you don't have tail, you can use tac + awk

tac input.txt | awk 'NR <=10'