Command history timestamps

[Nod]

Ever tried to find out what people did on the server?
Have you found the offending command, but do not know when it was done?

Set the following environment variable:

export HISTTIMEFORMAT='%F %T - '

When you execute `history`, the output will will now look like:

1072  2013-03-25 12:18:09 - ls -ltr
 1073  2013-03-25 12:18:18 - cd <dir>
 1074  2013-03-25 12:18:19 - ls -ltr
 1075  2013-03-25 12:36:38 - cd
 1076  2013-03-25 12:36:41 - cd temp
 1077  2013-03-25 12:36:42 - ls
 1078  2013-03-25 12:36:51 - mkdir <dir>
 1079  2013-03-25 12:36:56 - mv <file>.tar.gz <dir>/
 1080  2013-03-25 12:36:58 - cd <dir>
 1081  2013-03-25 12:37:00 - alias
 1082  2013-03-25 12:37:10 - history|grep ftp
 1083  2013-03-25 12:37:54 - ftp ftp://ftpserver
 1084  2013-03-25 14:25:53 - echo <something>
 1085  2013-03-25 14:42:49 - history

 

[w1z4rd]

Time stamps are useful, but if you are not worried about the time you can just type:

# cat .bash_history

Never knew about the history command. I see when I type it the time stamps are there.

 

[Nod]

Time stamps are useful, but if you are not worried about the time you can just type:

# cat .bash_history

Never knew about the history command. I see when I type it the time stamps are there.

There are many ways to skin a cat.
The number in front of the output from the history command, can also be used to repeat the command by type a "!" infront the the number, for example:

!1083

This will repeat the ftp command from the output above.