Comments on: Shell tip: Clear the command history and screen when you log out

By: Ken Mos

Ken Mos — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:08:17 +0000

Please update me with putty

By: Phissure

Phissure — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:15:43 +0000

I placed “history -r” in .bash_logout

I then added the following to .bashrc, just in case something did get written to .bash_history. It checks if you have any other sessions open, if you don’t it clears the .bash_history file.

if [ w | grep -c $(whoami) = 1 ]; then
>/home/$(whoami)/.bash_history
fi

By: Leila

Leila — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:09:03 +0000

gnudiego you are correct, it does not work with gnome-terminal which is installed as a default for linux mint. I am considering removing the gnome-terminal but would like to know what the best alternative would be.

Thanks.

By: gnudiego

gnudiego — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:19:01 +0000

It seems like .bash_logout doesn’t work in psudo-terminals like gnome-terminal or konsole. Anybody has idea why it doesn’t?

By: Vinnie

Vinnie — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:38:31 +0000

Kumar asked about clearing the information from his putty window.

To do so -
1. Right click on the top bar of the putty window
2. A Context menu will appear
3. Select “Clear Scrollback”

This will erase all details of your session from putty’s scrollback buffer.

By: Kumar Chetan Sharma

Kumar Chetan Sharma — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:49:01 +0000

even after running clear or history -c, which I find is the best option to add to ./bash_logout, I can still scroll my putty screen and see what all I have done. Is there any way to completely erase this information.

By: erica

erica — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:09:10 +0000

you are a genius shafe

By: Harka

Harka — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Hi,

history -c will clear the entire bash history.
To only clear the current session history use:
history -r.

By: Shankar

Shankar — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:50:48 +0000

Thanks shaff, It works

By: SHAFE

SHAFE — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:01:04 +0000

This is the Wright and the Best OPtion to clear the command History

history -c

By: jeff

jeff — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:27:41 +0000

ever heard of kill -9 $$ ?

It logs you out and clear the history.

It seems to kill bash, echo $$ gives you the bash PID

A friend of mine showed me this once, but I never completely get how it works, if someone can explain, please do so…

By: NVRAM

NVRAM — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:19:19 +0000

> maybe history -c is an option…
I like it.

I’ve typically used:
HISTFILE=/do/not/use/$RANDOM/$RANDOM

> why not put “unset HISTFILE” in your .bashrc file, since .bash_logout
> will be run about the time .bash_history is written [snip]

Similar idea, but IIRC I’ve had problems with unsetting the HISTFILE — but that was probably ~15 years ago under Korn shell.

I also tried a touch-then-delete approach in my profile, I think that one worked fine, but the $RANDOM is my default.

Incidentally, I try to always do this for root, since on rare occasions passwords are on the command line.

By: naveenvasireddy

naveenvasireddy — Mon, 21 May 2007 04:56:39 +0000

really this is very useful for me

By: vivek

vivek — Wed, 16 May 2007 09:40:33 +0000

>ln -s /dev/null .bash_history
sounds good idea

>maybe history -c is an option…
never thought of that, good idea :)

Appreciate your posts!

By: J

Wed, 16 May 2007 08:40:38 +0000

maybe history -c is an option…

By: dbr

dbr — Tue, 15 May 2007 22:12:43 +0000

The >~/.bash_history thing seems a slightly odd way of doing things, why not put “unset HISTFILE” in your .bashrc file, since .bash_logout will be run about the time .bash_history is written, so it may (though probably not) end up wiping the file before it’s written.
Or what I prefer to do, rm .bash_history and then :
ln -s /dev/null .bash_history