Is there a way to display a list comprised of the last n terminal commands made by a particular user ?
1
4
Every user has a .bash_history file, present in his home directory. i.e. /home/<USERNAME>/.bash_history. It stores all the command executed by a particular user.
You can use this file to see the command executed by a user. (You need root privilege to access file of other user.)
tail -n /home/<USERNAME>/.bash_history
Don't forget to replace n with actual number.
4
If your shell is bash, then the best way is to use the history command:
(HISTFILE=/home/user/.bash_history; history -c; history -r; history n)
While a bit complicated, this provides all the benefits of the history command (such as timestamps, if you have enabled it). The parentheses (()) ensure the commands are run in a subshell and don't affect the current shell.
2
tail -n /home/userinquestion/.bash_history would seem the obvious answer - assuming they have bash as their shell, of course..
If there is a terminal open, it may not have written commands to the history file yet.
You will need to use su or sudo if the user is not yourself.
2
One other option is to create a simple shell script that does this:
#!/bin/bash
tail --lines=$1 /home/$(whoami)/.bash_history
This takes g-P's answer and makes it just a little prettier by doing more stuff automatically.
Run
nano history-lookup.sh(or whatever name you want - just end it in.sh)Paste that code in
Press Ctrl+O then Ctrl+X to save and exit.
Run
bash history-lookup.sh NUMBER-OF-ENTRIES. It should spit them out nicely onto the screen.
answered Jan 27 '15 at 16:19
1
Please try:
history | tail -n20 > history20.txt
By sending the result to a text file, you can print, review, email, etc. the text file at any time.
