04 Mar 09 Linux Command History

By default your history is stored under bash for 500 commands. You can view your history by issuing the command:

history

This is one good reason why you should not enter passwords as part of a command line where possible. i.e. use mysql -u root -p and then enter the password when prompted by the mysql command, rather than using mysql -u root –password=secretpassword

On login you can use unset HISTFILE which will cease logging to your history file.

You could also use rm -f ~/.bash_history; ln -s /dev/null ~/.bash_history

This will remove your bash history file, then link a file of the same name to /dev/null which is where your history logs will now end up!

Tags: bash, bash_history, command history, history, Linux, MySQL

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