HISTFILE=_____ works for root but not other IDs.

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Placing the following in /.profile works fine for root. It creates
/.roothist/log.yymmdd.hhmmss and uses it as the history file.

STAMP=`date +%y%m%d.%I%M%S`
export HISTFILE=$HOME/.hist/log.$STAMP

Unfortunately, I can't get get it to work for other IDs. ( oracle for instance ).

After logging in as oracle, I can do a:
$ echo $HISTFILE
and I get the correct path and filename but the file is never created nor used as the history file. I had already created the directory and ensured that oracle had proper permissions to it. oracle continues to use .sh_history.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Thom

[Holger Knoppik]

Hi Thomas,

try the following:
export HISTFILE=$HOME/.hist/log.$`STAMP`

I had to use this for making timestamps by scripts. The problem is that the shell has to refresh the timestamp by executing date.

HTH,
RGDS, Holger

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Thanks Holger,

Unfortunately I can even use:

HISTFILE=$HOME/.hist
HISTSIZE=500
export HISTFILE HISTSIZE

and it doesn't seem to work.

I'll keep that TIMESTAMP trick in mind though.

Thom

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,

the HISTFILE variable contains a subdirectory. Is the subdir created for the relevant users?? And are the privileges OK for these users?

Otherwise creating the file (touch) in advance with the right privileges might help.

good luck,
Thierry.

[Martin Johnson]

You also have to define the EDITOR:

EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi; export EDITOR


Marty

[Rodney Hills · Accepted solution]

Is it possible that with your root login, you do an "exec" to another shell?

According to the man page for "sh-posix", when you set HISTFILE, only the next shell that is launched would use the assigned filename.

So if you assign HISTFILE in .profile, not until another shell is launched will it use the defined file for history.

-- Rod Hills

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Thanks Thierry,

I added a > $HOME/.hist/log.$STAMP

before the export HISTFILE= statement and
it created the file but still doesn't use it.

As soon as I login I tried the following:

Rights for non-DOD U.S. Government Departments and Agencies are as set
forth in FAR 52.227-19(c)(1,2).

QADB$ echo $HISTFILE
/home/tdharri/.hist/log.020619.090924
*** HISTFILE has the correct value.

QADB$ ll -d .hist
drwxr-xr-x 2 tdharri users 96 Jun 19 09:09 .hist
*** .hist perms should be okay.

QADB$ ll .hist
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 tdharri users 0 Jun 19 09:09 log.020619.090924
*** As you can see the log file was created but it isn't being used. .sh_history is still the history file.

???

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Martin: Both IDs have the following in their .profile before the HISTFILE stuff.

EDITOR=vi
export EDITOR

Rodney: Neither .profile has an exec anywhere in it.

Thanks.

Thom

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Rodney,

I think you're on the right track. If I log in the new history file doesn't work. However,
if I "su tdharri" it does.

Thanks a lot.

Thom

[Rodney Hills]

I found that I must assign HISTFILE prior to defining any functions in my .profile. Somehow the function definition are logged to the history file. Once it has opened .sh_history for writing, it will ignore whatever HISTFILE has.

-- Rod Hills

[Martin Johnson]

Do a "set -o" to get a listing of variables. Check to see if "vi on". If it is off do "set -o vi".


Marty

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Rod,

I tried both of the following combinations at the very beginning of my .profile.

1)
EDITOR=vi; export EDITOR
export HISTFILE=$HOME/.hist/log$$

2)
export HISTFILE=$HOME/.hist/log$$
EDITOR=vi; export EDITOR

No luck. :-(

As I mentioned, if I su tdharri after initially logging in I starts using the new history file.

Thanks.

Thom

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Marty,

set -o as tdharri showed that vi was ON.

Thanks.

Thom

[Joey K. Harpole_1]

Thom,

Are you using CDE? If so, for your .profile to work I think you have to modify $HOME/.dtprofile

Instructions for modifying .dtprofile are in the file.

Good Luck,
Joe

[Thomas D. Harrison]

Joe,

We're actually using PuTTY SSH and not CDE. We also get the same issue with telnet.

Thanks for you idea.

Thom

[Rodney Hills]

/etc/profile gets processed first during shell login, before a users .profile files. Is it possible something in /etc/profile, like a function definition, would be writing to the history file?

-- Rod Hills