Fighting typeset...
When somebody's policy makes varibles readonly, such as HISTFILE, with this in a /etc/profile.d/* file: typeset -r HISTFILE Lets us modify readonly the environment varibles. This works only if we have gdb installed. Done on RHEL7.9 export HISTFILE=abd -bash: HISTFILE: readonly variable $ echo $HISTFILE mailto:/home/myuser@AD-domain/.history/20231107.155621 $ gdb -ex 'call unbind_variable("HISTFILE")' --pid=$$ --batch 0x00007f7ec902d46c in waitpid () from /lib64/libc.so.6 $1 = 0 [Inferior 1 (process 35393) detached] $ HISTFILE=.bash_history $ touch .bash_history $ ls $ cat .bash_history HISTFILE=.bash_history touch .bash_history ls $ If gdb is available, then stick this into your .bashrc: [ -f /usr/bin/gdb ] && /usr/bin/gdb -ex 'call unbind_variable("HISTFILE")' --pid=$$ --batch' >/dev/null 2>&1 And now we can set up our history with something sensible ( at least sensible for me). export HISTFILESIZE= export HISTSIZE= unset HISTTIMEFORMAT export...