Re: Cannot save changes to sudoers

In comp.os.linux.setup Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
On 2006-03-28, AZ Nomad <aznomad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

bull***.

visudo is just another editor. there is nothing in the file system,
or anywhere else that restricts editing /etc/sudoers to visudo.

Since we're calling bull***, visudo is not an editor; it calls an
editor after doing some locking, and does some syntax checking after the
editor exits.

Exactly, visudo is just a wrapper and should always be used to
edit /etc/sudoers.

[..]

"You are trying to save this file on a read-only disk" is an indication
that the file system is readonly or perhaps a text editor that doesn't
know the difference between a readonly file and a readonly file system.

That was going to be my guess.

As the OP pointed out he can modify other files in /etc, the
reason is, the fancy editor used doesn't know how to work with
readonly files.

--keith

[0] Well, if your favourite editor is not compiled in to visudo, you
might have a problem.

'visudo' should respect $EDITOR, if set. If not it'll happily
default to vi(m). Makes sense thinking about the commands name
and the fact that there's only one editor. ;-)

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
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