diff --git a/Godeps b/Godeps
index 926adcb74..9dd6a83ed 100644
--- a/Godeps
+++ b/Godeps
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ github.com/gonuts/go-shellquote e842a11b24c6abfb3dd27af69a17f482e4b483c2
 github.com/gorilla/context 1ea25387ff6f684839d82767c1733ff4d4d15d0a
 github.com/gorilla/mux c9e326e2bdec29039a3761c07bece13133863e1e
 github.com/hailocab/go-hostpool e80d13ce29ede4452c43dea11e79b9bc8a15b478
+github.com/hpcloud/tail b2940955ab8b26e19d43a43c4da0475dd81bdb56
 github.com/influxdata/config b79f6829346b8d6e78ba73544b1e1038f1f1c9da
 github.com/influxdata/influxdb 21db76b3374c733f37ed16ad93f3484020034351
 github.com/influxdata/toml af4df43894b16e3fd2b788d01bd27ad0776ef2d0
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/all/all.go b/plugins/inputs/all/all.go
index 36526f4d1..93ea3e779 100644
--- a/plugins/inputs/all/all.go
+++ b/plugins/inputs/all/all.go
@@ -56,6 +56,7 @@ import (
 	_ "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs/statsd"
 	_ "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs/sysstat"
 	_ "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs/system"
+	_ "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs/tail"
 	_ "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs/tcp_listener"
 	_ "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs/trig"
 	_ "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs/twemproxy"
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/filestat/filestat.go b/plugins/inputs/filestat/filestat.go
index 831d37444..938c12e34 100644
--- a/plugins/inputs/filestat/filestat.go
+++ b/plugins/inputs/filestat/filestat.go
@@ -14,8 +14,14 @@ import (
 const sampleConfig = `
   ## Files to gather stats about.
   ## These accept standard unix glob matching rules, but with the addition of
-  ## ** as a "super asterisk". See https://github.com/gobwas/glob.
-  files = ["/etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf", "/var/log/**.log"]
+  ## ** as a "super asterisk". ie:
+  ##   "/var/log/**.log"  -> recursively find all .log files in /var/log
+  ##   "/var/log/*/*.log" -> find all .log files with a parent dir in /var/log
+  ##   "/var/log/apache.log" -> just tail the apache log file
+  ##
+  ## See https://github.com/gobwas/glob for more examples
+  ##
+  files = ["/var/log/**.log"]
   ## If true, read the entire file and calculate an md5 checksum.
   md5 = false
 `
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/tail/README.md b/plugins/inputs/tail/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..3b1c50665
--- /dev/null
+++ b/plugins/inputs/tail/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+# tail Input Plugin
+
+The tail plugin "tails" a logfile and parses each log message.
+
+By default, the tail plugin acts like the following unix tail command:
+
+```
+tail --follow=name --lines=0 --retry myfile.log
+```
+
+- `--follow=name` means that it will follow the _name_ of the given file, so
+that it will be compatible with log-rotated files.
+- `--lines=0` means that it will start at the end of the file (unless
+the `from_beginning` option is set).
+- `--retry` means it will retry on inaccessible files.
+
+see http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/tail.1.html for more details.
+
+The plugin expects messages in one of the
+[Telegraf Input Data Formats](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/blob/master/docs/DATA_FORMATS_INPUT.md).
+
+### Configuration:
+
+```toml
+# Stream a log file, like the tail -f command
+[[inputs.tail]]
+  # SampleConfig
+```
+
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/tail/tail.go b/plugins/inputs/tail/tail.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..cb99eff61
--- /dev/null
+++ b/plugins/inputs/tail/tail.go
@@ -0,0 +1,152 @@
+package tail
+
+import (
+	"fmt"
+	"log"
+	"sync"
+
+	"github.com/hpcloud/tail"
+
+	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf"
+	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/internal/globpath"
+	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs"
+	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/parsers"
+)
+
+type Tail struct {
+	Files         []string
+	FromBeginning bool
+
+	tailers []*tail.Tail
+	parser  parsers.Parser
+	wg      sync.WaitGroup
+	acc     telegraf.Accumulator
+
+	sync.Mutex
+}
+
+const sampleConfig = `
+  ## files to tail.
+  ## These accept standard unix glob matching rules, but with the addition of
+  ## ** as a "super asterisk". ie:
+  ##   "/var/log/**.log"  -> recursively find all .log files in /var/log
+  ##   "/var/log/*/*.log" -> find all .log files with a parent dir in /var/log
+  ##   "/var/log/apache.log" -> just tail the apache log file
+  ##
+  ## See https://github.com/gobwas/glob for more examples
+  ##
+  files = ["/var/mymetrics.out"]
+  ## Read file from beginning.
+  from_beginning = false
+
+  ## Data format to consume.
+  ## Each data format has it's own unique set of configuration options, read
+  ## more about them here:
+  ## https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/blob/master/docs/DATA_FORMATS_INPUT.md
+  data_format = "influx"
+`
+
+func (t *Tail) SampleConfig() string {
+	return sampleConfig
+}
+
+func (t *Tail) Description() string {
+	return "Stream a log file, like the tail -f command"
+}
+
+func (t *Tail) Gather(acc telegraf.Accumulator) error {
+	return nil
+}
+
+func (t *Tail) Start(acc telegraf.Accumulator) error {
+	t.Lock()
+	defer t.Unlock()
+
+	t.acc = acc
+
+	var seek tail.SeekInfo
+	if !t.FromBeginning {
+		seek.Whence = 2
+		seek.Offset = 0
+	}
+
+	var errS string
+	// Create a "tailer" for each file
+	for _, filepath := range t.Files {
+		g, err := globpath.Compile(filepath)
+		if err != nil {
+			log.Printf("ERROR Glob %s failed to compile, %s", filepath, err)
+		}
+		for file, _ := range g.Match() {
+			tailer, err := tail.TailFile(file,
+				tail.Config{
+					ReOpen:   true,
+					Follow:   true,
+					Location: &seek,
+				})
+			if err != nil {
+				errS += err.Error() + " "
+				continue
+			}
+			// create a goroutine for each "tailer"
+			go t.receiver(tailer)
+			t.tailers = append(t.tailers, tailer)
+		}
+	}
+
+	if errS != "" {
+		return fmt.Errorf(errS)
+	}
+	return nil
+}
+
+// this is launched as a goroutine to continuously watch a tailed logfile
+// for changes, parse any incoming msgs, and add to the accumulator.
+func (t *Tail) receiver(tailer *tail.Tail) {
+	t.wg.Add(1)
+	defer t.wg.Done()
+
+	var m telegraf.Metric
+	var err error
+	var line *tail.Line
+	for line = range tailer.Lines {
+		if line.Err != nil {
+			log.Printf("ERROR tailing file %s, Error: %s\n",
+				tailer.Filename, err)
+			continue
+		}
+		m, err = t.parser.ParseLine(line.Text)
+		if err == nil {
+			t.acc.AddFields(m.Name(), m.Fields(), m.Tags(), m.Time())
+		} else {
+			log.Printf("Malformed log line in %s: [%s], Error: %s\n",
+				tailer.Filename, line.Text, err)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+func (t *Tail) Stop() {
+	t.Lock()
+	defer t.Unlock()
+
+	for _, t := range t.tailers {
+		err := t.Stop()
+		if err != nil {
+			log.Printf("ERROR stopping tail on file %s\n", t.Filename)
+		}
+		t.Cleanup()
+	}
+	t.wg.Wait()
+}
+
+func (t *Tail) SetParser(parser parsers.Parser) {
+	t.parser = parser
+}
+
+func init() {
+	inputs.Add("tail", func() telegraf.Input {
+		return &Tail{
+			FromBeginning: false,
+		}
+	})
+}
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/tail/tail_test.go b/plugins/inputs/tail/tail_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..78e2dd578
--- /dev/null
+++ b/plugins/inputs/tail/tail_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+package tail
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/tcp_listener/tcp_listener.go b/plugins/inputs/tcp_listener/tcp_listener.go
index ce07a7601..a420ed759 100644
--- a/plugins/inputs/tcp_listener/tcp_listener.go
+++ b/plugins/inputs/tcp_listener/tcp_listener.go
@@ -221,7 +221,10 @@ func (t *TcpListener) handler(conn *net.TCPConn, id string) {
 // tcpParser parses the incoming tcp byte packets
 func (t *TcpListener) tcpParser() error {
 	defer t.wg.Done()
+
 	var packet []byte
+	var metrics []telegraf.Metric
+	var err error
 	for {
 		select {
 		case <-t.done:
@@ -230,7 +233,7 @@ func (t *TcpListener) tcpParser() error {
 			if len(packet) == 0 {
 				continue
 			}
-			metrics, err := t.parser.Parse(packet)
+			metrics, err = t.parser.Parse(packet)
 			if err == nil {
 				t.storeMetrics(metrics)
 			} else {
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/udp_listener/udp_listener.go b/plugins/inputs/udp_listener/udp_listener.go
index 39249de37..8e2637ce7 100644
--- a/plugins/inputs/udp_listener/udp_listener.go
+++ b/plugins/inputs/udp_listener/udp_listener.go
@@ -135,12 +135,14 @@ func (u *UdpListener) udpParser() error {
 	defer u.wg.Done()
 
 	var packet []byte
+	var metrics []telegraf.Metric
+	var err error
 	for {
 		select {
 		case <-u.done:
 			return nil
 		case packet = <-u.in:
-			metrics, err := u.parser.Parse(packet)
+			metrics, err = u.parser.Parse(packet)
 			if err == nil {
 				u.storeMetrics(metrics)
 			} else {