Linux command line history tips

Many times I found myself typing history into the terminal and then copy/paste the command I was looking for. But, then I found the below tricks to help repeat that command faster and more efficiently.

Use Control+R

I found this to be the most beneficial for me. It will do a reverse search really fast! Just press enter when you see the command you need to retype.

Repeat the previous command quickly

This is useful if you know you recently typed a command. You can use the following key combinations:

• Use the up arrow to view the previous command and press enter to execute it.
• Type !! and press enter from the command line
• Type !-1 and press enter from the command line.
• Press Control+P will display the previous command, press enter to execute it

Execute a specific command from history

For example, you can display history as usual:

history | more
1  service apache2 restart
2  ifconfig
3  ls
4  cat /etc/hosts

If you want to repeat command #2, you will type !2 as show below:

# !2
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 12:38:33:b7:99:96  
          inet addr:10.0.0.17  Bcast:10.0.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::1038:33ff:feb7:9996/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:9001  Metric:1
          RX packets:586486972 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:539727562 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:363967988525 (363.9 GB)  TX bytes:491630839370 (491.6 GB)