This article will explore different methods to ensure your passwords are properly managed and protected.
When it comes to securing your passwords and sensitive information, it's important to understand how Bash's history works and how you can clear it.
Clearing Bash History
By default, reset or tput reset commands only affect the terminal and have no impact on the shell. This means that the history of your commands remains intact, even though you don't personally see them in your terminal window anymore.
To actually clear your history within the current shell, you can use the command history -c. However, keep in mind that this is a comprehensive measure and might be considered overkill if you haven't exited the shell or explicitly saved the history.
Saving and Managing Your Bash History
When you exit bash, your command history is automatically saved to a history file, typically located at .bash_history in your home directory. The new history from the current session is appended to the file while existing entries remain unaffected. To overwrite the history file with the current shell's history, simply run history -w.
Rather than deleting all your history entries, you have the option to manually edit your .bash_history file using a text editor. By removing specific lines, you can selectively delete unwanted entries. Another approach is to use bash commands, though less convenient. You would first use history to display all entries, followed by history -d to delete the desired ones, and finally history -w to save the changes.
Ensuring Complete Purge
It's essential to verify that your password is purged from all running shell instances before considering the history file completely cleared. If you have multiple active bash instances that have read the password, each one might save it again. Taking this precaution ensures that your sensitive information is securely removed.