Bash – Keep all commands in bash history

I don't think you really want that. My usual workflow goes like this:

• Type a command
• Run it
• Notice it failing
• Press UP key
• Edit the command
• Run it again

Now, if the failed command weren't saved into history I couldn't get it easily back to fix and run again.

I was intrigued by your question. I wasn't originally going to give an answer but I got hooked.

This uses expect and it's really a key logger.

#!/usr/bin/expect -f

proc log {msg} {
    puts $::fh "[timestamp -format {%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}]: $msg"
}

set ssh_host [lindex $argv 0]
set ::fh [open "sshlog.$ssh_host" a]

log "{session starts}"

spawn ssh $ssh_host

interact {
    -re "(.)" {
        set char $interact_out(1,string)
        if {$char eq "\r"} {
            log $keystrokes
            set keystrokes ""
        } else {
            append keystrokes $char
        }
        send -- $char
    }
    eof
}

log "{session ends}"

Notes:

• it appends to a file with the ssh destination in the name
• it is a key logger: if you have not set up ssh keys, you get the user's password in the log file
• it is foiled by tab completion: if the user types uptTab (for the uptime command), you'll get "upt\t" in the log file, not "uptime"
• it grabs characters in "raw" mode: if the user is a bad typist, you'll get lots of ^? (backspace characters) in the log file.