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For logrotated files one usually uses tail -F instead of tail -f to follow the log file contents. Does multitail(1) automatically follow the name instead of the inode (which likely changes with the log rotation)?

I sifted through the documentation and also searched on the web, but wasn't able to come up with a conclusive answer.

Thanks to the accepted answer I found that the man page does mention the option I wanted, but uses the term "descriptor" instead of "inode". So this question and the answer should be the glue for the next person researching the topic.

-f Follow the following filename, not the descriptor.

  For all files after this switch: follow the following filename, not the descriptor.
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up vote 3 down vote accepted

According to the multitail manual:

-f  This makes MultiTail follow the file. In case the original file gets

To me, this implies that by default it follows by inode / file descriptor rather than filename.

A cursory reading of the source bears this out; in exec.c:79, the follow_filename var (set in cmdline.c:889 or ui.c:966) defines whether the follow-by-filename flag (-F, --follow=name, etc.) is passed to tail.

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Thanks, that's it. I see that yet again it was mys search term which was the limiting factor. –  0xC0000022L Jan 31 at 0:43
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