You need to edit your file as root
. Maybe you need to change default keyboard layout from "en" to "de" with editing /etc/default/keyboard
.
OK, you opened the file with your favorite text editor -aka. vim, started to edit but realised that something's wrong. Your mappings not working. Even your alias
not working for neovim
-eg. alias vi=nvim
, it opened the file "legacy" vim
. You may come up a solution with another alias
like:
alias svi=sudo nvim
But it yields another error:
E484: Can't open file $MYVIMRC
What? It is where it should to be and there is no problem with normal
user editing. Problem is when you edit with sudo
it uses root
's paths and settings. So if you don't have a copy your .vimrc
file in the root's $HOME
there is no change getting it. Or is there?
Sure there is; show your .vimrc
path to vim:
$ svi -u ~/.config/nvim/init.vim
Details for -u
flag from manpage of nvim
:
-u {vimrc} The file {vimrc} is read for initializations. Most other
initializations are skipped; see |initialization|. This can
be used to start Vim in a special mode, with special
mappings and settings. A shell alias can be used to make
this easy to use. For example: >
alias vimc vim -u ~/.config/nvim/c_init.vim !*
It seems OK but it won't help with your plugins
. Another solution:
$ sudo -E nvim /etc/some_conf_file
What does -E
do? From manpage:
-E The -E (preserve environment) option indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to preserve their existing environment variables. The security policy may return an error if the -E option is specified and the user does not have permission to preserve the environment.
Hence, you should use this option with care, and don't use it hastily as an alias. Actually do not use it at all.
After some research I find another "vim-ic" solution:
" Editing a protected file as 'sudo'
cmap W w !sudo tee % >/dev/null<CR>
So when you want to save the changes use :W
instead of :w
, vim will prompt for a sudo
password, enter your sudo
password and hit Enter
. Good.
:w !sudo tee % >/dev/null
sudo: tty present and no askpass program specified
shell returned 1
You thought this is the solution but, no.
Granting the user to use that command without prompting for password should resolve the problem:
First;
$ sudo visudo
Then edit that file to add to the very end:
username ALL = NOPASSWD: /fullpath/to/command, /fullpath/to/othercommand
" eg
" sam ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/poweroff, /sbin/start, /sbin/stop
This will allow user
sam to sudo
poweroff
, start
and stop
without being prompted for password. But this is not a work around that I like to use for some possbile security
issues as well.
OK then, what would be the "ultimate" solution for this problem, answer: sudoedit
Use sudoedit
instead of sudo vim
. Make sure your $EDITOR
environment variable is set to vim
or nvim
. Probably already is, or vim
is the default; you can set it in your .profile
or .bashrc/.zshrc
file:
export VISUAL=nvim
export EDITOR="$VISUAL"
Now you can edit the file with usual configs as usual:
$ sudoedit /etc/some_conf_file
All done.
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