increasing history size to 10000

[Member eyekay234]

When i enter the command echo $HISTSIZE i get a size limit of 500 . i tried using HISTSIZE=10000
and then checked with the echo command and saw it was now at 10,000 but as soon as i reboot, it goes back to default 500.

How can i get the history to permanently be at 10,000

[Member sybok]

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Hi, please provide more information:
1) How did you re-set HISTSIZE?
Perhaps, search internet for “permanent” change of HISTSIZE.
The change in terminal is for the current session only, change in configuration files is expected to be preserved.
Also, there is a related parameter, see e.g. https://askubuntu.com/questions/307541/how-to-change-history-size-for-ever
2) [If still relevant] What is your system. If live USB without persistence, then the changes are most likely not preserved.

[Member eyekay234]

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These are what i did:

sudo nano ~/.bashrc file
HISTSIZE=10000
echo $HISTSIZE
echo $HISTFILE

i also did try what is on this https://askubuntu.com/questions/307541/how-to-change-history-size-for-ever but it didnt work as soon as i reboot, back to 500

As regards (3). this is not a live usb but an already installed system.

i just need a way to ensure that the changes made are permanent as regards the history being 10,000

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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As long as your bashrc configuration file is executed when you open your bash shell, you can manually verify it with the echo command and if you really want to see it just add the echo command to the bashrc file just below the command that sets the value and you can display the value every time the file is sourced (run).

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Brian Masinick

[Member sybok]

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I implicitly assume that you use BASH as your shell.
If ‘~/.bashrc’ does not work (which I find surprising, I admit I am not sure if one needs to export the variable), then you may try to put the HISTSIZE (and probably also HISTFILESIZE) into:
1) ‘~/.bash_profile’ if it exists (not on my current system)
2) If it does not, then use the file ‘~/.profile’ which should be read in even by BASH.

Hope that helps.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by sybok.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Personally I also export the history variables that I set; that makes them available for any later programs that are started from the shell.

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Brian Masinick

[Member sybok]

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According to the post https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/new-path-question/#post-96175 the file ‘~/.profile’ may not help but the 1st post in thread indicates that ‘~/.bashrc’ did work for PATH.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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export HISTSIZE=10000
export HISTFILESIZE=10000

Put BOTH in /etc/bash.bashrc and all bash shells will include these unless they are overridden by your own definitions.

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Brian Masinick

[Member eyekay234]

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@masinick FINALLY GOT IT TO WORK!!!

Put BOTH in /etc/bash.bashrc

export HISTSIZE=10000
export HISTFILESIZE=10000

Then i ran HISTSIZE=10000

now when i run echo $HISTSIZE even after rebooting, it gives me 10,000.

Thanks a lot for the help

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Great!

I’m happy that it works.

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Brian Masinick

[Member iznit]

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Brian Masinick wrote:

Personally I also export the history variables that I set; that makes them available for any later programs that are started from the shell.

Brian Masinick, thank you that’s a great tip.

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