Getting Data In

.bash_history on NFS-mounted home directory

Branden
Builder

Hi.

We would like to index users' shell history (.bash_ history) in Splunk. The issue is that we have shared home directories that are NFS mounted. That means whenever you log into a machine, you're accessing your same files and, consequently, the same .bash_history.

We'd like Splunk to know what host the user was on when .bash_history was updated. This way we can run a search within Splunk and see how typed which commands from which host.

Is this possible? It sound like it's a procedural issue that is outside of Splunk. I'm hoping someone else here has accomplished this.

Thanks!

dwaddle
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Splunk alone cannot do this. This really isn't a question for Splunk, more of a question of "how do I managed shell history files on a shared unix filesystem?"

You can make bash produce distinct history files per host and then index those. Add something like this to .profile:

export HISTSIZE=10000
export HISTTIMEFORMAT="%F %T "
export HISTFILE=/$HOME/.history/$HOSTNAME
export PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a'

Bonus - you get usable timestamps in your bash history!

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