bash history not being preserved

Question

this is a fresh install of ubuntu 12.10. i haven't even looked at the bashrc or profile files when i noticed that

• history would work fine for the current session.
• as soon as i closed the terminal, all history was gone

my first reaction was to check some new default .bash_logout but there's nothing there besides a line to clear the screen. i commented it out just to be sure.

then i checked all the system wide bash settings, such as /etc/bashrc and still nothing.

what may be happening here?

EDIT: ok, found the issue... .bash_history was owned by root! only on the user that i created during the install. will install on another box with the same image to rule out a bug or a mistake on my part after the install.

Answer 1

Confirmed on new Ubuntu 12.10 i686 installation, with initial user account.

guinan@x100e:~$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="12.10, Quantal Quetzal"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu quantal (12.10)"
VERSION_ID="12.10"

guinan@x100e:~$ arch
i686

guinan@x100e:~$ ls -l .bash_history
-rw------- 1 root root 302 Mar 12 13:19 .bash_history

guinan@x100e:~$ less .bash_history
.bash_history: Permission denied

guinan@x100e:~$ rm .bash_history
rm: remove write-protected regular file `.bash_history'? y

$ xterm
[ $ echo Hi there. ]
[ $ exit ]


guinan@x100e:~$ ls -l .bash_history
-rw------- 1 guinan guinan 15 Mar 13 13:48 .bash_history

guinan@x100e:~$ cat .bash_history 
echo Hi there.