Why do some lines in the SHELL' history end with "*"

yannick Coffi -



In Linux, there’s a handy command to display all recently used commands: history. You can also view past commands by checking the .bash_history or .zsh_history file in your home directory.

By default, the history command displays the last 500 commands you've entered. Pretty useful, isn't it?

As your see below some lines contain an * asterisk at their end, but why?

$ history -E -100

...
..
10059* 11.11.2021 14:17  sudo rm -r whyu57KF.jpg cWynotfcf576.jpg
10060* 11.11.2021 14:17  ls
10061* 11.11.2021 14:17  sudo rm -r 334JOcWhgjd.jpg rgyhjb_o.jpg
10064* 11.11.2021 14:22  ls
10065* 11.11.2021 14:44  cd
10066* 11.11.2021 14:44  clear
10068  11.11.2021 14:45  sudo cscli decisions list | grep ban | wc -l
10070* 11.11.2021 14:45  sudo apt update
10071* 11.11.2021 14:46  sudo apt list --upgradable -a
10072* 11.11.2021 14:46  sudo apt -y upgrade
10073  11.11.2021 14:46  sudo rkhunter --propupd
10074* 11.11.2021 15:37  sudo apt update
10077* 11.11.2021 16:03  pwd
10079  11.11.2021 16:03  sudo apt update
10081* 11.11.2021 16:17  cd
10082* 11.11.2021 16:17  ls -a
10083* 11.11.2021 16:27  clear
...
..


The * (asterisk) indicates commands run from a different session—simple as that. You can verify this by opening two terminal windows, running a series of commands in each, and then checking the history in both. The asterisk will only appear next to commands executed in the other window.

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