Hi, I am Attila Molnar, from a small start-up from Hungary Well the subject pretty well describes the problem... I tried to override the history file value with: (package-initialize) (require 'tramp) (defvar tramp-histfile-override "~/.tramp_history" "Prevent tramp from using /dev/null and recreating it as a regular file when history size is reached.") With no success. However, I found the problem in the source code and fixed it: @@ -3865,7 +3865,7 @@ file exists and nonzero exit status otherwise." ;; the prompt in /bin/bash, it must be discarded as well. (tramp-send-command vec (format - "exec env ENV='' HISTFILE=/dev/null PROMPT_COMMAND='' PS1=%s PS2='' PS3='' %s %s" + "exec env ENV='' HISTFILE=~/.tramp_history PROMPT_COMMAND='' PS1=%s PS2='' PS3='' %s %s" (tramp-shell-quote-argument tramp-end-of-output) shell (or extra-args "")) t)) @@ -4587,7 +4587,7 @@ connection if a previous connection has died for some reason." (delete-process p)) (setenv "TERM" tramp-terminal-type) (setenv "LC_ALL" "en_US.utf8") - (setenv "HISTFILE" "/dev/null") + (setenv "HISTFILE" "~/.tramp_history") (setenv "PROMPT_COMMAND") (setenv "PS1" tramp-initial-end-of-output) (let* ((target-alist (tramp-compute-multi-hops vec)) Data about my Emacs: In GNU Emacs 24.5.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.18.7) of 2016-03-07 on attilaWorkStation Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11704000 System Description: NAME=Gentoo Configured using: `configure --prefix=/usr --build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var/lib --disable-dependency-tracking --disable-silent-rules --libdir=/usr/lib64 --program-suffix=-emacs-24 --infodir=/usr/share/info/emacs-24 --localstatedir=/var --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp --with-gameuser=:gamestat --without-compress-install --with-file-notification=inotify --enable-acl --with-dbus --with-gpm --with-hesiod --without-kerberos --without-kerberos5 --without-xml2 --without-selinux --with-gnutls --without-wide-int --with-zlib --with-sound=alsa --with-x --without-ns --with-gconf --with-gsettings --without-toolkit-scroll-bars --with-gif --with-jpeg --with-png --with-rsvg --with-tiff --with-xpm --with-imagemagick --with-xft --without-libotf --without-m17n-flt --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 GENTOO_PACKAGE=app-editors/emacs-24.5-r1 'CFLAGS=-march=core2 -O2 -pipe' CPPFLAGS= 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed'' Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.utf8 locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Emacs-Lisp Minor modes in effect: TeX-PDF-mode: t pyvenv-mode: t global-company-mode: t company-mode: t global-undo-tree-mode: t undo-tree-mode: t global-flycheck-mode: t flycheck-mode: t rainbow-delimiters-mode: t projectile-global-mode: t projectile-mode: t yas-global-mode: t yas-minor-mode: t helm-mode: t helm-adaptive-mode: t diff-auto-refine-mode: t magit-auto-revert-mode: t auto-revert-mode: t global-git-commit-mode: t async-bytecomp-package-mode: t fic-ext-mode: t shell-dirtrack-mode: t show-paren-mode: t global-linum-mode: t linum-mode: t tooltip-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Recent messages: Mark set Type C-h i to view popup manual, ? to describe an argument or action. 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