title: How to find and tail the Oracle alert log
body: <p>When you take your first look at an Oracle database, one of the first questions is often "where's the alert log?". Grid Control can tell you, but its often not available in the environment.</p>
  
  <p>I posted some bash and Perl scripts to find and tail the alert log <a href="http://tardate.blogspot.com/2007/04/find-and-tail-oracle-alert-log.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">on my blog</a> some time back, and I'm surprised to see that post still getting lots of hits.</p>
  
  <p>The technique used is to lookup background_dump_dest from v$parameter. But I only tested this on Oracle Database 10g.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a better approach than this? And does anyone know if this still works in 11g?</p>