In the article, we are going to discuss how to store Linux Terminal output into Log file or text file automatically or how to record Linux terminal. Linux utilities like script, scriptreplay, etc. can be used to record commands and their output printed on your terminal during specific terminal session.
The linux command-line utility history command can be used to view previously used command on the terminal, but it can not store the output of that all commands.
Whenever we are working on special projects and lazy about to redirect the output of the commands to text files every time using (>),(>>) or command utilities like tee, etc. Here is the solution for you guys by which the full terminal session will be recorded by only one command until you stop it. It will record all the commands and their outputs to a user-defined log file.
script Command Utility
Usage:
script [options] [file]
Make a typescript of a terminal session.
Options:
-a, --append append the output
-c, --command <command> run command rather than interactive shell
-e, --return return exit code of the child process
-f, --flush run flush after each write
--force use output file even when it is a link
-o, --output-limit <size> terminate if output files exceed size
-q, --quiet be quiet
-t[<file>], --timing[=<file>] output timing data to stderr or to FILE
-h, --help display this help
-V, --version display version
How to Store Linux Terminal output using script Command
script command will store all commands and their outputs of Linux terminal in a text file or log file.
Run below script command with the output file name to start recording all the data of the terminal and store it in file.
$ script report.txt
Command will Give output as “Script started, file is report.txt”, that means the recording of the data is started successfully.
Now run any command that you want, this all the data will be stored in report.txt file automatically.
When you are done with the work, you can stop the utility by exit command.
$ exit
This will give output alert “Script done, file is report.txt”, that means all the data captured and stored in report.txt log file.
Now, you can use any text editor or cat command to view the text file in which data is stored.
$ cat report.txt
This will show the output as below,
root@kali:~# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
root@kali:~# pwd
/root
root@kali:~# nmap 127.0.0.1 -v
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2020-06-09 12:11 IST
Initiating SYN Stealth Scan at 12:11
Scanning localhost (127.0.0.1) [1000 ports]
Stats: 0:00:00 elapsed; 0 hosts completed (1 up), 1 undergoing SYN Stealth Scan
SYN Stealth Scan Timing: About 1.00% done; ETC: 12:11 (0:00:00 remaining)
Discovered open port 21/tcp on 127.0.0.1
Completed SYN Stealth Scan at 12:11, 0.07s elapsed (1000 total ports)
Nmap scan report for localhost (127.0.0.1)
Host is up (0.000014s latency).
Not shown: 999 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
Read data files from: /usr/bin/../share/nmap
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.18 seconds
Raw packets sent: 1000 (44.000KB) | Rcvd: 2001 (84.044KB)
root@kali:~# exit
scriptreplay Command Utility
This was a simple static text file captured data. Now, if we want to replay the terminal session like video, then we can use another utility called scriptreplay with script.
First of all we have to record the session commands using script with time options. Run the below command to start the capturing data.
$ script --timing=time.txt report.txt
Use exit command when you are done. The command will create two files. One is report.txt for data storage and another is time.txt for time-line storage.
Then run scriptreplay command with the data file and time-line file, to view the captured terminal session. This will play captured session as same as the video.
$ scriptreplay --timing=time.txt report.txt
This will play the recorded session. This will show like we are viewing a video in the terminal.
So, that’s all guys. If you have any doubts then you can ask using the comment section below of the page.
