I want to execute some commands, but I don't want to store them in the command history. So that nobody will be able to search them in the .bash_history file.
Is there a way how to execute Bash commands this way?
235
votes
This question should probably be moved to ServerFault as this is not "programming" as much as it is "server admin" - but thanks for the question/answer, exactly what I needed!
– Andrew Theken
I think this question should be on-topic. It helps hundreds of developers...
– Mitrakov Artem
13 Answers
340
votes
Start your command with a space and it won't be included in the history.
Be aware that this does require the environment variable $HISTCONTROL to be set.
Check that the following command returns
ignorespaceorignoreboth:echo $HISTCONTROLTo add the environment variable if missing, the following line can be added to the Bash profile. E.g., to file
%HOME/.bashrc.export HISTCONTROL=ignorespace
After sourcing the profile again, space-prefixed commands will not be written to $HISTFILE.
62
votes
In any given Bash session, set the history file to /dev/null by typing:
export HISTFILE=/dev/null
Note that, as pointed out in the comments, this will not write any commands in that session to the history!
Just don't mess with your system administrator's hard work, please ;)
Doodad's solution is more elegant. Simply unset the variable: unset HISTFILE (thanks!)
23
votes
An extension of John Doe's and Cédric ROYER's answer. But, this seems to work for me.
<your_secret_command>; history -d $((HISTCMD-1))
You should not see the entry of the command in your history.
Here's the explanation...
The 'history -d' deletes the mentioned entry from the history.
The HISTCMD stores the command_number of the one to be executed next. So, (HISTCMD-1) refers to the last executed command.
11
votes
You might consider using a shell without history, like perhaps
/bin/sh << END
your commands without history
END
(perhaps /bin/dash or /bin/sash could be more appropriate than /bin/sh)
Or even better, use the batch utility, e.g.,
batch << EOB
your commands
EOB
The history would then contain sh or batch which is not very meaningful.
11
votes
If you are using Z shell (zsh) you can run:
setopt histignorespace
After this is set, each command starting with a space will be excluded from history.
You can use aliases in .zshrc to turn this on/off:
# Toggle ignore-space. Useful when entering passwords.
alias history-ignore-space-on='\
setopt hist_ignore_space;\
echo "Commands starting with space are now EXCLUDED from history."'
alias history-ignore-space-off='\
unsetopt hist_ignore_space;\
echo "Commands starting with space are now ADDED to history."'
10
votes
You can start your session with
export HISTFILE=/dev/null ;history -d $(history 1)
then proceed with your sneaky doings. Setting the histfile to /dev/null will be logged to the history file, yet this entry will be readily deleted and no traces (at least in the history file) will be shown.
Also, this is non-permanent.
5
votes
As mentioned by Doodad in comments, unset HISTFILE does this nicely, but in case you also want to also delete some history, do echo $HISTFILE to get the history file location (usually ~/.bash_history), unset HISTFILE, and edit ~/.bash_history (or whatever HISTFILE was - of course it's now unset so you can't read it).
$ echo $HISTFILE # E.g. ~/.bash_history
$ unset HISTFILE
$ vi ~/.bash_history # Or your preferred editor
Then you've edited your history, and the fact that you edited it!
4
votes
3
votes
There are several ways you can achieve this. This sets the size of the history file to 0:
export HISTFILESIZE=0
This sets the history file to /dev/null, effectively disabling it:
export HISTFILE=/dev/null
For individual commands, you can prefix the command with a space and it won't be saved in the history file. Note that this requires you have the ignorespace value included in the $HISTCONTROL environment variable (man bash and search for ignorespace for more details).
1
votes
