Install Atuin and reshape your shell history management

I like the old CTRL+r paired with fzf, but one thing this setup missed is syncing history when I’m working from the laptop so my little guy can play Lego city on my PC. I try to keep as little tools as possible in my workflow so it’s repeatable but Atuin has earned its place recently.

Install

We need two things, A client and an Atuin server we self-host. In my case I keep it on one of my server so I can access my history from both my laptop and desktop.

Client

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wget https://github.com/atuinsh/atuin/releases/download/v18.10.0/atuin-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz -O atuin.tar.gz
tar xf atuin.tar.gz
sudo install atuin-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/atuin /usr/bin
atuin --help

Server

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services:
  atuin:
    restart: always
    # change this to fit with the user you want to use
    user: 1000:1000
    image: ghcr.io/atuinsh/atuin:18.10.0 # Pin to a specific version, this one is the latest at the time of writing
    command: server start
    volumes:
      - "./config:/config"
    ports:
      - 8888:8888
    environment:
      ATUIN_HOST: "0.0.0.0"
      ATUIN_OPEN_REGISTRATION: "true"
      ATUIN_DB_URI: postgres://${ATUIN_DB_USERNAME}:${ATUIN_DB_PASSWORD}@db/${ATUIN_DB_NAME}
      RUST_LOG: info,atuin_server=debug
    depends_on:
      - db
  db:
    image: postgres:14
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - "./database:/var/lib/postgresql/data/"
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${ATUIN_DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${ATUIN_DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${ATUIN_DB_NAME}

You will need to populate a .env file for the database credentials, make sure you change the password to a secure value and the permissions on the file are limited. It should be in the same directory as your docker-compose file

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docker compose up -d

Once this is running you will need to change some settings in your $HOME/.config/atuin/config.toml

In my case I need to set the sync_url to my hosting server but if you’re running only locally, you need to set it to localhost or 127.0.0.1 to be able to register.

For example, when edited here’s what you should have

One thing that I do modify is the enter_accept setting, I feel more secure knowing I can accept a command and reread or modify it after the fact.

Take a look at the config options for things you might like

All that’s left to do then is run two commands:

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atuin register -u $your_username -e [email protected]
atuin import $your_shell

Now your shell history is synced and you can have it follow from machine to machine if you want to!