UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

i have several boxes running either ubuntu, redhat or solaris.

there are multiple people with root access on these boxes. i really dont like people looking through my command history, is there a way i can prevent this?

what files do i have to edit to prevent anyone from being able to see what commands i ran?

EDIT:

After months of searching, i finally found a way to hide my command history, even from root.

I just needed to create my own shell. It wasn't very easy. But it could be done, and it required quite a lot of creativity. Here's a very good article i found:

Prevent bash history - Bash prevent command history - Hide your bash unix history

You can't protect anything from root. And the usual tricks like making your history file empty and read-only wouldn't even seem to apply, root access overrides that...

what if i have root access myself? about i not log any command i run?

Any user with root or equivalent privileges can monitor anything he wants. Disabling shell history logging would be useless against a determined person.

It still will not be hidden to other "root" users...
no history could be an option... but you punish yourself also...

We make the root history file name unique by including the date, time and tty in the filename. We keep a month's worth of these history files because it can by quite handy to check what you or another administrator typed in a session should things go wrong. You can work out which are yours by checking your own login history.

If you just need for different user's histories not to mix, methyl solution is fine.

If you don't trust other people using your machine and need full privacy on it, don't allow anyone else than you with root privileges on your machine.

Even using a shell that doesn't record the command history by design or by configuration isn't going to prevent a user with root privileges to monitor what you are typing in real time and store all commands you are executing somewhere.