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tail utility doesn't support +n parameters. For example: on Fedora 5 and 6: $ cat /etc/group | tail +3 tail: cannot open `+3' for reading: No such file or directory On CentOS 4.3, Solaris, etc... [sdubrov@home ~]$ tail /etc/group | tail +3 torrent:x:101: hacluster:x:501: haclient:x:502: This is a quote from man page: If the first character of N (the number of bytes or lines) is a ‘+’, print beginning with the Nth item from the start of each file, other- wise, print the last N items in the file. N may have a multiplier suffix: b 512, k 1024, m 1024*1024.
That 'N' comes from this: -n, --lines=N so you need: tail -n +5 or: tail --lines=+5 *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 173431 ***