Re: bash: clean history on logout?

["Ian D. Leroux" <idleroux%fastmail.fm@localhost>]

On Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:43 +0200, "feralert" <feralert%gmail.com@localhost> 
wrote:
> I have a NetBSD 4.0 machine (a few actually) I have taken over from
> someone lately that doesn't keep bash history from one session to
> another.
>
> What i have tried so far is:
> 
> - Check .bash_history is a regular file (not a link)
>     # ls -l .bash_history
>     -rw------- 1 root wheel 10282 Sep  1 12:26 .bash_history
> 
> - And that the HISTFILE var points to the right file
>      # echo $HISTFILE
>      /root/.bash_history
> 
> - looked for .bash_logout, but it doesnt exits.
> 
> - checked in crontab but there is nothing there.
> 
> 
> I don't know where else to look so any help would be appreciated.

From bash(1):
HISTFILESIZE
    The maximum number of lines contained in the history file. When this
    variable is assigned a value, the history file is truncated, if
    necessary, to contain no more than that number of lines. The default
    value is 500. The history file is also truncated to this size after
    writing it when an interactive shell exits.

Setting HISTFILESIZE to 0 might therefore do what you describe seeing.

--IDL