We can find files containing specific text on Linux in the following ways.
The content of the article
grep command
/# grep -rnw '/path/to/look/inside' -e 'text'
- i – ignore case (optional in your case).
- R – recursive.
- l – “show the file name, not the result itself”.
- / – starting at the root of your machine.
Example:
/# grep -rnw '/var/log/' -e ' 2.805245' /var/log/kern.log:1449:Jun 22 13:17:45 gharutyunyan-virtual-machine kernel: [ 2.805245] scsi host20: ahci /var/log/syslog.1:2696:Jun 22 13:17:45 gharutyunyan-virtual-machine kernel: [ 2.805245] scsi host20: ahci /var/log/dmesg:1428:[ 2.805245] kernel: scsi host20: ahci
ask command
ack 'text'
Example:
/var/log# ack ' 2.805245' kern.log 1449:Jun 22 13:17:45 gharutyunyan-virtual-machine kernel: [ 2.805245] scsi host20: ahci syslog.1 2696:Jun 22 13:17:45 gharutyunyan-virtual-machine kernel: [ 2.805245] scsi host20: ahci dmesg 1428:[ 2.805245] kernel: scsi host20: ahci
find command
find /path/to/look/inside -type f -exec grep -l "text" {} \;
Example:
/# find /var/log/ -type f -exec grep -l " 2.805245" {} \;
/var/log/kern.log
/var/log/syslog.1
/var/log/dmesg
RipGrep command
RipGrep command works very fast
rg 'text' /path/to/look/inside -l
Example:
/# rg " 2.805245" /var/log/ -l /var/log/kern.log /var/log/syslog.1 /var/log/dmesg
Test Environment
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)
VMware Workstation 15.1.0