Synchronet for *nix-like OSes can send its server and services output to your system's syslog facility (e.g. rsyslogd on Debian Linux). When running sbbs as a daemon, syslog-output is automatically enabled. When running sbbs interactively (not daemonized), syslog output can be enabled by passing the syslog command-line option to sbbs:
$ sbbs syslog
The syslog functionality is configurable via the LogFacility (default: U) and LogIdent (default: synchronet) values of the [UNIX] section of your ctrl/sbbs.ini file.
You can further configure your syslog output (e.g. directories and filenames) through the setup of your system's syslog facility (e.g. via the /etc/rsyslogd.conf file on Debian Linux).
The syslog output of the Synchronet daemon will usually go to a file in your /var/log directory. You can monitor real-time changes to this file with the tail -f command.
$ tail -f /var/log/sbbs.log
If you're using systemd to start and control sbbs, you can use journalctl to monitor the log (with colorized log lines) in real-time:
$ journalctl --follow -u sbbs
Another option for systemd systems is to use systemctl together with watch to monitor both the service status and log output together in real-time:
$ sudo watch systemctl status sbbs
An alternative tool to actively monitor log files is the lnav utility:
$ sudo lnav /var/log/logfile
On Darwin/macOS, you can use the log utility to view live or past log messages:
$ log stream --debug --process sbbs