Bash – How to get a persistent “history”-file even after a non-clean shutdown

bashcommand historycommand lineshutdown

I am trying Ubuntu Server 10.10 in VirtualBox. I like that the commands I run is saved in a "history"-file that can be shown with the history command. But if I just turn off VirtualBox without the shutdown command, then next time when I boot, the commands from the last session is not saved in the history file.

The commands are only saved if I shutdown the machine with the shutdown command. E.g. shutdown -P 0.

Is there any way I can save the history file after every command so they are persistent even after a "non-clean" shutdown?

Best Answer

You should always use shutdown.

You can add this to your ~/.bashrc file:

PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a'

This will append the in-memory history to your history file after each command is completed.

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Bash – Saving bash history from multiple Konsole not working correctly

I have concluded that it is not possible to append the new commands directly and at the same time to remove any duplicates. So my solution is to run the following command ones in a while. or to put it in my crontab.

tac $HOME/.bash_history | awk '!seen[$0]++' | tac > $HOME/.hist_Temp 
mv $HOME/.hist_Temp $HOME/.bash_history

The above command will keep the last occurrence of a command and remove every other repetitions above it from the history file without messing up the order.

Best Answer

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