possible bug in coreutils?

I am not sure if this is as designed, but the following produce results
that you would not expect:

given the following excerpt from my system log:
------------------------------------------------
Mar 18 19:12:40 newer sshd[19518]: Illegal user blah from 127.0.0.1
Mar 18 19:12:40 newer sshd[19518]: Failed none for illegal user blah
from 127.0.0.1 port 34433 ssh2
Mar 18 19:12:41 newer sshd[19518]: Failed password for illegal user
blah from 127.0.0.1 port 34433 ssh2
------------------------------------------------

using the following produces expected results:

     cat /var/log/messages | grep -i fail | cut -f 9- -d ' '
------------------------------------------------
illegal user blah from 127.0.0.1 port 34433 ssh2
illegal user blah from 127.0.0.1 port 34433 ssh2
------------------------------------------------

using the following produces nothing, yet it should continually yield
the above messages when watching the system log:

      tail -f /var/log/messages | grep -i fail | cut -f 9- -d ' '

however, I am able to use the following command and get output:

      tail -f /var/log/messages | grep -i fail


My main question is...  Is this as designed, or is there really a
problem here.  Also, if this is as designed, how would I go about
getting the same results with tail that I do with cat?

If there is any other information that you require, please do not
hesitate to contact me.

Shell:  bash version 2.05b.0(1)

Sincerely,

Scott W. Griffith
(520)248-9160
[email protected]



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