DazBlade

If you are a newbie to LINUX as I am then like me you probably sometimes forget those cool switches you used in a command or maybe you edited a configuration file but forgot its path. For example, I might have been working with spamassassin and forgot how to start it or maybe forgot I edited its config file. I’m sure one of the first things you learned is the arrow up key to scroll through your history but what if you have used loads of commands since using the specific one your interested in… Try this:

[root@HostBlade ~]# history | grep spamassassin

This will search your command history for all occurences of spamassassin and return results similar to the following:

799 vi /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
800 cat /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
803 cat /var/spool/exim/.spamassassin/
821 ps aux | grep spamassassin
824 /etc/init.d/spamassassin start
831 chkconfig spamassassin on

So, from the above I can see that line 799 is what I typed to edit the config file. I can also see that line 824 is what I typed to start spamassassin.

I have found that using the history command in this way has really help me to remember more and more and although I still use it, I don’t use it as often as I used to. I hope other newbies will find this helpful. And, for all you LINUX gurus out there chuckling away to yourselves then don’t worry, your respect is still assured and your presence is still welcome.

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