UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello!

I am using a macbook pro with leopard on it. Once I used the Terminal to type in a sudo command and it promted me to type in my password so I did. A few weeks later I found an invisible file in my "home" folder called .bash_history. It obviously shows a history of what commands I used in the Terminal. I don't know why the system creates this file and after what criteria it displays the commands (i.e. I couldn't find all the commands I used recently). But what troubles a little bit is that I found my password in that file. So my question is what part of the system creates that file and how can I turn off that process or modify it so it won't display my password. I am new at Unix so I hope this thread is not too stupid or something^^

greetings

If properly used your password will never show up in that file. Only command lines (which should never include any passwords) are stored there. There are not all commands because different bash instances overwrite each other when you use more than one at a time. You can disable that file by setting

Code:

export HISTFILESIZE=0

in ~/.bashrc

if you don't type or copy/paste your password into the command line it will never show up in the history.

alright thanks for the answers. it might have been a fault on my side.