tail

Similar to the head command, the tail command lets you see the last 10 lines of a file by default.

$ tail /etc/services

Along with head you can change the number of lines you want to see.

$ tail -n 10 /etc/services

Another great option you can use is the -f (follow) flag, this will follow the file as it grows. Give it a try and see what happens.

$ tail -f mylogfile.txt

If the file is one that something is still writing to, such as the log of a job you have running, tail -f shows you each new line as it arrives. Note that tail -f does not stop on its own: it sits there waiting for more, which is the point. Press Ctrl-C when you have seen enough.

On many systems you can watch this happen with a system log, such as /var/log/syslog, though on a shared server you will often not have permission to read those.