bash_history_backup

A Script to backup the history content to a file.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Setup
• Todo List
• References
• Manual setup

Overview

A Script (and a configuration change to .bashrc) to update the format of the history (to include date and time) and backup the history content to a file.

Download

From GitHub using

git clone https://github.com/m2a2/bash_history_backup.git

Setup

Setup using setup_script

Note: if you prefere a more controlled / manual setup the the instructions below Manual setup

cd setup
./setup_history_backup.sh

Usage

backup_history.sh

Todo List

References

• Inspierd by: https://gist.github.com/patientzero/39496387237d85c8d29d209d29957f52

Manual setup (optional)

Create Backup directory

• The script assumes the following folder name 'history_backups'
• Note: you can specify another backup folder, if you prefer another folder perform the update in the next step

mkdir history_backups

(optional) Update backup_folder in backup_history.sh

• if you prefer a different backup folder
• update the path "./history_backups" in the backup_history.sh script (line 9)

Edit .bashrc to use same history file over all sessions and add a timestamp to the history

vi ~/.bashrc

HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups
# for setting history length see HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE in bash(1)
HISTSIZE=10000
HISTFILESIZE=10000
HISTTIMEFORMAT="%F %T "

# append to the history file, don't overwrite it
shopt -s histappend

export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a; history -c; history -r; $PROMPT_COMMAND"

Note: The PROMPT_COMMAND environment variable

Bash provides an environment variable called PROMPT_COMMAND. The contents of this variable are executed as a regular Bash command just before Bash displays a prompt.