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adamency/ssh_print_remote_history.template.sh

Last active February 3, 2025 04:19
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Display History of Remote Machine through SSH
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ssh_print_remote_history.template.sh
temp_hist_file="/tmp/remote-host.bash_history"
ssh <user>@<remote-host> -i <private_key_for_remote-host> "cat ~/.bash_history" > "$temp_hist_file"
(history -cr "$temp_hist_file" ; history)
#rm "$temp_hist_file"
# Original source: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/316120
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adamency commented Feb 3, 2025 •
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Made for bash. Easy to adapt for other shells.

The main point of this gist is too show the correct solution because no clear solution for this problem is easily found online.

Pitfalls:

  • We cannot use ssh user@host "history" as history is a bash built-in and not a binary in the path. Built-ins are only loaded during interactive sessions.
  • Using ssh user@host "bash -ic 'history'" cause issues because it cannot find a TTY
    ex. error:
bash: cannot set terminal process group (-1): Inappropriate ioctl for device
bash: no job control in this shell
  • Using ssh -t user@host is not guaranteed to work for all ssh connections (issues can arise when local and remote machines don't use the same OS, e.g. Windows -> Linux.
  • Using HISTFILE=$temp_hist_file ; history does not work since the env var is only used at shell startup time
  • Using history -cr "$temp_hist_file" ; history without parentheses will affect the real bash history of the current local user, which is unwanted.

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