ignorespace - omits commands beginning with a space
ignoredups - omits commands that match the previously run command
ignoreboth - combines ignorespace and ignoredups
erasedups - removes previous lines that match the line that was just run

To set it, simply run the following from the command line, or add it to the .bashrc or a single user's .bash_profile:

export HISTCONTROL=ignorespace

If no value is set, then all commands will be saved regardless of their content.

Limiting which commands are kept in the bash history file is a post from: Major Hayden's Racker Hacker blog.

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