UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi there,
How can I add the current session command history to .bash_history?

During a session, I type several commands.

If I close my session, those commands are added to the file .bash_history.

But if my session crashes or just if I loose connection, those commands are lost.

Is there any way to regularly save the last typed commands?

Thanks for your help
Santiago

Don't know of an automated way unless you write a script that does it. Guess you could write a script using this that is called at the start of a Bash session. Manual way is as follows.

Code:

history -w

Thanks Lazydog, that's exactly what I was looking for.
Unfortunately, this command cannot be used in any script because I think a script creates a separate session. So doing history -w in a script does not append anything to the current .bash_history

That's a strange one...I know you can turn the command history on/off and even increase/decrease the history size.

If I'm reading your question right you're saying during a normal session you can log back in to the server and your command history is still there...but if your session crashes for some reason...every command you entered during that session goes away? ...or does all of your command history goes away?

Is bash your default shell or is your default shell something else?

Try looking through this reference and see if maybe something isn't set right on your system... GNU Bash Reference Manual - Bash History Facilities

You might also try adding a user to the system with bash as the default shell and see if the same issue occurs.



*edit* I apologize if I'm reading into your issue incorrectly...late nite and not enough coffee...yet.

bash is my default shell.
In case of crash, I only loose the commands entered during the session that crashed.
It looks like a normal behavior because cat .bash_history contains only commands typed during the previous sessions while history -a contains commands typed during the current session and history -w the concatenation of both.
Example:

I would say give it a try and see. You might be surprised.

hi Lazydog,
what do you mean? I really tried it! This is no bullshit!
Santiago