How do I show apt-get package management history via command line?

All actions with apt (apt-get) are logged. These files are available in /var/log/apt/. To view the most recent history log, execute:

less /var/log/apt/history.log

These logs gets rotated (every month I guess), old files will be suffixed with a number and compressed. So to view the next history log, use:

zless /var/log/apt/history.log.1.gz

To view the logs available:

ls -la /var/log/apt/

You can also make a short command to display the interesting content.

• Add this custom function to your ~/.bashrc:

  ### pars for fun: install | remove | rollback
  function apt-history(){
  
        case "$1" in
          install)
                grep 'install ' /var/log/dpkg.log
                ;;
          upgrade|remove)
                grep $1 /var/log/dpkg.log
                ;;
          rollback)
                grep upgrade /var/log/dpkg.log | \
                    grep "$2" -A10000000 | \
                    grep "$3" -B10000000 | \
                    awk '{print $4"="$5}'
                ;;
          *)
                cat /var/log/dpkg.log
                ;;
        esac
  }
  

• And call it in a terminal like this:

  kreso@h17:~$ apt-history install
  2013-08-06 14:42:36 install gir1.2-nautilus-3.0:amd64 <none> 1:3.8.2-0ubuntu1~ubuntu13.04.1
  2013-08-06 14:42:36 install python-nautilus:amd64 <none> 1.1-3ubuntu1
  2013-08-06 14:42:37 install insync-nautilus:all <none> 1.0.20
  2013-08-07 14:41:37 install powertop:amd64 <none> 2.1-0ubuntu1
  2013-08-07 18:44:10 install libdiscid0:amd64 <none> 0.2.2-3build1
  2013-08-07 18:44:11 install sound-juicer:amd64 <none> 3.5.0-0ubuntu1
  

Taken from here

You can also use the following command to list recently installed packages

grep "\ install\ " /var/log/dpkg.log

If you want those packages that were installed and not subsequently uninstalled, try this:

comm -23 <(grep "apt-get install" /var/log/apt/history.log | sed 's/.* //' | sort) \ 
<(grep "apt-get remove" /var/log/apt/history.log | sed 's/.* //' | sort) 

This is the installs minus any matching removes.

References:

• comm: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11963862/338303
• <(grep...) syntax: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/73931/redirecting-multiple-commands-as-input

To get the update history of a specific package assuming it was installed/updated via apt here's a oneliner (bash and zgrep), example is for package skypeforlinux:

package='skypeforlinux'; pregex="(${package}[^\)]+\))"; while read -r line; do [[ "$line" =~ ^Start-Date:[[:space:]]([[:digit:]].+) ]] && curdate="${BASH_REMATCH[1]} "; [[ "$line" =~ $pregex ]] && echo "$curdate ${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"; done < <(for i in `ls -tr /var/log/apt/history*`; do zgrep -B3 "$package" $i; done)

This greps apt's history log files for skypeforlinux including the previous three lines to get the date. Then iterates over the result and echoes the relevant dates and versions.

Replace the package variable value with your package name, even works for multiple packages provided they begin with same string.

Example with output:

package='apache'; pregex="(${package}[^\)]+\))"; while read -r line; do [[ "$line" =~ ^Start-Date:[[:space:]]([[:digit:]].+) ]] && curdate="${BASH_REMATCH[1]} "; [[ "$line" =~ $pregex ]] && echo "$curdate ${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"; done < <(for i in `ls -tr /var/log/apt/history*`; do zgrep -B3 "$package" $i; done)
2017-10-19  15:00:09  apache2-utils:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5)
2017-11-24  14:24:45  apache-pom-java:amd64 (10-2build1, automatic)
2018-02-22  16:42:02  apache2-data:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5, automatic)
2018-02-26  15:34:34  apache2:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5)
2018-02-26  15:36:32  apache2-data:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5)
2018-02-26  15:40:50  apache2-data:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5, automatic)
2018-02-26  15:42:07  apache2:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5)
2018-02-26  15:42:39  apache2:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5)
2018-03-15  10:08:50  apache-pom-java:amd64 (10-2build1)
2018-04-20  08:55:07  apache2-data:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.5, 2.4.18-2ubuntu3.8)
2018-07-06  08:55:11  apache2-data:amd64 (2.4.18-2ubuntu3.8, 2.4.18-2ubuntu3.9)

Here is how you actually do it, say package mutter:

_P=mutter &&
(cat /var/log/dpkg.log{,.1};zcat /var/log/dpkg.log.*.gz) |
egrep --text "^[^ ]* [^ ]* (configure|install|remove|status [^ ]*|trigproc|upgrade) $_P[: ]" |
sort --reverse | less

Using dpkg.log captures operations that apt-get does not see.

Output:

2016-12-20 09:47:35 status unpacked mutter:amd64 3.22.2-2ubuntu1~ubuntu16.10.1
2016-12-20 09:47:35 status installed mutter:amd64 3.22.2-2ubuntu1~ubuntu16.10.1
…