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Linux provides a command called “history” to view the previously executed commands on shell. By default, the “history” command display only the commands that were executed but not the date and time when they were executed. To display the time OR the date when the previous commands were executed on shell, you need to set the “HISTTIMEFORMAT” variable.

So, in order to check the date and time of previously executed commands in Linux, set the “HISTTIMEFORMAT” variable by executing the command:

# export HISTTIMEFORMAT=”[%F] [%T] “

You can also insert the above line at the end of the .bash_profile file

# vi /root/.bash_profile

Once you save the file, open a new SSH session and execute the ‘history’ command to view the timestamp of the executed commands.

For example:

root@server [~]# history
1068  [2010-08-05] [07:17:04] ps -auxf
1069  [2010-08-05] [07:17:06] top c
1070  [2010-08-05] [07:17:35] ll
1071  [2010-08-05] [07:37:51] ls -la
1072  [2010-08-05] [07:41:37] cat /root/.bash_profile
1073  [2010-08-05] [07:41:47] cd

The commands in the above output is just an example.

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