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I cut the bash command line text using Ctrl+K. The line was cut as expected. Next, I ran sudo su to become the root user.

I tried to paste the command that I cut as the non-sudo user using Ctrl+Y. It is no longer available.

How can I use cut, copy and paste in bash shell across user sessions?

G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
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  • Take a look at files like .bashrc or .inputrc inside /root to see whether they are set correctly. – Hongxu Chen Jun 28 '15 at 08:21
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    This is not related to your question, but there's never any point in running sudo su. Just run sudo -i or su if you have enabled the root account. – terdon Jun 28 '15 at 08:27
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    When you switch user, you are getting a new interactive process. The buffer that your command Yanks to is in the memory of, and hence local to the shell that you were using. – bsd Jun 28 '15 at 09:29

1 Answers1

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Control+K saves text in the Readline's buffer.
Control+Y extracts text from that buffer.
Each Bash instance has own buffer.

I suppose that you want to run a previous command as root. Try sudo !!. Details in Understanding the exclamation mark (!) in bash

Use tmux for a complex copypasting across sessions/shells etc:

tmux # Start tmux session
echo some-text
some-text
...
bash # Start new bash
...

Hm, I want to copy echo output from the outer session.
Control+b,[ - Enter copy mode to copy text or view the history
Control+r, some, Enter - Search some
Control+Space - Start selection
Control+e - Select to the end of line
Esc+w - Copy selection
Control+b,] - Paste the most recently copied buffer of text

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Evgeny
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