Questions[bash-history](ubuntu)

I read that, in order to not save bash commands to .bash_history, you put a space in front. This worked on all my embedded Linux PCs but not on my desktop with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I just thought it was an Ubuntu 'quirk' or something. Now I've installed a second PC with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and it works as expected: commands with a space in front are not saved!

So there's possibly something wrong with the first PC with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. How can I figure out what's causing this and fix it so it doesn't save bash commands with space in front?

Excerpt:

mark@mark:~$ tail -n 5 .bash_history 
./deploy.sh 
./deploy.sh 
upd
 man ls
nano .bash_history 
mark@mark:~$ 

Possibly useful stuff:

mark@mark:~$ cat .bashrc 
alias upd="sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt autoremove"
export PATH="$PATH:"/opt/microchip/xc8/v1.44/bin""

mark@mark:~$ printenv
CLUTTER_IM_MODULE=xim
LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8
LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8
LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8
XDG_MENU_PREFIX=gnome-
KIGITHUB=https://github.com/KiCad
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
MANAGERPID=1252
DISPLAY=:0
INVOCATION_ID=26457eadc1b8429692b7f3bd70c6464f
UNITY_DEFAULT_PROFILE=unity
COMPIZ_CONFIG_PROFILE=ubuntu
GTK2_MODULES=overlay-scrollbar:overlay-scrollbar
GTK_CSD=0
COLORTERM=truecolor
ZEITGEIST_DATA_PATH=/home/mark/.local/share/zeitgeist
USERNAME=mark
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/run/user/1000/keyring/ssh
MANDATORY_PATH=/usr/share/gconf/unity.mandatory.path
LC_NAME=en_US.UTF-8
USER=mark
DESKTOP_SESSION=unity
QT4_IM_MODULE=xim
TEXTDOMAINDIR=/usr/share/locale/
GNOME_TERMINAL_SCREEN=/org/gnome/Terminal/screen/24f3cfef_6815_4cfb_8cdc_6c63814db4b6
DEFAULTS_PATH=/usr/share/gconf/unity.default.path
PWD=/home/mark
HOME=/home/mark
JOURNAL_STREAM=9:1719321
TEXTDOMAIN=im-config
QT_ACCESSIBILITY=1
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
COMPIZ_BIN_PATH=/usr/bin/
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/unity:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/var/lib/snapd/desktop
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=unity
LC_ADDRESS=en_US.UTF-8
SSH_AGENT_LAUNCHER=gnome-keyring
LC_NUMERIC=en_US.UTF-8
GTK_MODULES=gail:atk-bridge:unity-gtk-module
PAPERSIZE=letter
WINDOWPATH=3
GNOME_SESSION_XDG_SESSION_PATH=
TERM=xterm-256color
VTE_VERSION=5202
SHELL=/bin/bash
QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
IM_CONFIG_PHASE=2
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity:Unity7:ubuntu
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/run/user/1000/gnupg/S.gpg-agent:0:1
GNOME_TERMINAL_SERVICE=:1.617
UNITY_HAS_3D_SUPPORT=true
SHLVL=3
LC_TELEPHONE=en_US.UTF-8
GDMSESSION=unity
GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID=this-is-deprecated
LOGNAME=mark
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000
XAUTHORITY=/run/user/1000/gdm/Xauthority
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/xdg/xdg-unity:/etc/xdg
PATH=/home/mark/bin:/home/mark/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/snap/bin:/opt/microchip/xc8/v1.44/bin:/opt/microchip/xc8/v1.44/bin:/opt/microchip/xc8/v1.44/bin
LC_IDENTIFICATION=en_US.UTF-8
LD_PRELOAD=libgtk3-nocsd.so.0:libgtk3-nocsd.so.0
SESSION_MANAGER=local/mark:@/tmp/.ICE-unix/19058,unix/mark:/tmp/.ICE-unix/19058
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8

I added time to the ~/.bashrc file, so now it shows me time when I execute history command like this:

  376  04/10/19 20:39:52 sudo cat ~/.bash_history
  377  04/10/19 20:40:04 date
  378  07/10/19 10:13:29 echo 'HISTTIMEFORMAT="%d/%m/%y %T "' >> ~/.bashrc
  379  07/10/19 10:13:38 source ~/.bashrc
  380  07/10/19 10:13:54 history
  381  07/10/19 10:20:08 sudo vim /home/subir/.bash_history 
  382  07/10/19 10:20:29 sudo nano /home/subir/.bash_history 
  383  07/10/19 11:34:20 cd ..
  384  07/10/19 11:34:34 find | grep .bash_history
  385  07/10/19 11:34:48 cat ./subir/.bash_history 
  386  07/10/19 11:37:32 history

But when this session's data gets appended to ~/.bash_history file then it shows something like this :

#1570201804
date
#1570423409
echo 'HISTTIMEFORMAT="%d/%m/%y %T "' >> ~/.bashrc
#1570423418
source ~/.bashrc
#1570423434
history
#1570423808
sudo vim /home/subir/.bash_history 
#1570423829
sudo nano /home/subir/.bash_history 

What are the values after # ?. Can anyone help me deduce it's meaning or tell me a way to get timestamp in ~/.bash_history file.

In Bash (as well as Bash in WSL), multiline written commands can call-back with up/down arrows correctly also built-in history command report them correctly (until I'm still logged-in in bash).

But after exiting from bash and press up/down arrows, multiline commands appears each as separate entries and that's because cat ~/.bash_history has chucked the command on multiple separate entries and writing problem here; the history command result messed too.

I have set these options in ~/.bashrc

shopt -s cmdhist lithist
HISTTIMEFORMAT='%F %T '

and now writing problem fixed but history command still report in multiple line and separate entries (reading problem now).

Bash version is 4.3, same issue on v4.4

there is this bug report since a long years but no solution yet.

Update:

it's also to mention that below multiline command as an example is correctly displaying even after exit Bash:

for i in {1..10}
do
echo $i
done

but this is failing:

awk '
{ print $1}' <<<'first last'

Update 2:

the issue mentioned above is fixed in Bash v5.0.0+ that changed to recognize entries between "timestamp as delimiter" as single entry of command (HISTTIMEFORMAT, cmdhist and lithist must be set).

A couple of years ago, I did the automatic distribution update from 14.04 to 16.04. For the first time in my life, I was able to continue to use the computer after the automatic distribution update. As usual, the software repositories are all muntered, so system updates don't work properly, but I've gotten by.

I am going to do a clean installation of 18.04, however. In order to be able to configure my system more easily after the installation, I exported my command history to a text file.

$ history > /.../20180915_Command_history.txt

Beautifully, the resulting text file contains line numbers. Somewhat mysteriously, the first line number is 76. After looking at the first few lines, it looks like there were probably some previous commands.

1. Do the line numbers just start at 76 for some reason?
2. If not, is there any way that I can see lines 1 to 75?

I know that Bash has both HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE variables that control how long history is saved for, and how much of it is saved. I would like to keep an archive of my history. However, if I set either of the two variables mentioned above to a very large number, it makes searching for old commands very difficult, and after enough time they might get deleted anyway.

How can I automatically archive my bash history files once they get to a certain size, and is this method applicable to other log files (such as /var/log/auth.log)?