Linux – How to change the .bash_history file location

bashcommand historyftplinuxssh

I'm running CentOS 6.x and want to move the .bash_history to a different location.

The home directories of my users are (because I run a VPS) in /var/www/vhost/<domain>.<tld> which is FTP accessible (and it should be).

Because of this, I have changed the AuthorizedKeysFile for SSH connections out of the normal ~/.ssh/authorized_keys since FTP connections would easily be able to locate them.

At the same time I want to move the .bash_history file to /home/%u/.bash_history where %u is the current user.

Best Answer

You need to set HISTFILE for your users to the location you need, set the following in .bash_profile for the user, and for new users set it in the user skeleton directory, most likely /etc/skel/.bash_profile

export HISTFILE=/home/$USER/.bash_history

Related Solutions

Word – ssh key auth still asks for password (no passphrase set)

You have wrong value for AuthorizedKeysFile parameter. From man sshd_config:

AuthorizedKeysFile may contain tokens of the form %T which are substituted during connection set-up. The following tokens are defined: %% is replaced by a literal '%', %h is replaced by the home directory of the user being authenticated and %u is replaced by the username of that user. After expansion, AuthorizedKeysFile is taken to be an absolute path or one relative to the user's home directory. The default is ".ssh/authorized_keys".

Linux – Changing AuthorizedKeysFile in `sshd_config` not solving public key auth failure with encrypted home

You question is missing information from log produced by sshd:

/var/log/auth.log

Error message says something about wrong permissions on /home.

Manual page for sshd adds this condition:

~/.ssh/authorized_keys

If this file, the ~/.ssh directory, or the user's home directory are writable by other users, then the file could be modified or replaced by unauthorized users. In this case, sshd will not allow it to be used unless the StrictModes option has been set to “no”.

So option is to fix permissions or if you need to have the /home group writable, use StrictModes no in your sshd_config.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Word – ssh key auth still asks for password (no passphrase set)

Linux – Changing AuthorizedKeysFile in `sshd_config` not solving public key auth failure with encrypted home

Related Question