this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Why memorize a different command? I assume
sudoeditjust looks up the system's EDITOR environment variable and uses that. Is there any other benefit?It doesn't edit the file directly, it creates a temp file that replaces the file when saving. It means that the editor is run as the user, not as root.
So it opens the file in your editor, since you have read access to it. Then saves your changes to a temp file. Then when you close the editor it does a sudo mv tmpfile readfile?
I checked this by checking the file ownership when running
touch myself. The file is owned by root.sudo nano myselfalso creates a file owned by root.sudoedit myselfbitches at me not to run it in a writable directory.So I ran it in a non-writable directory and the resulting file is still owned by root.
So is the advantage of
sudoeditpreventing a possible escalation of privileges situation?For me personally the advantage is that since the editor is opened by your user, it has all of the same config that I'm used to (such as my souped up Neovim config).
Whereas if you
sudo nvim /path/to/filethen the editor is opened as root and you don't have the same configuration.That's a pretty big advantage actually. Thanks!
I just make
/root/.config/nvima symlink to~/.config/nvimand runningnvimas root gives me all the same settings I'm used to. (I'd rather not runnvim-qtas root though, so in that casesudoeditis useful.)Yes, and it also lets me use my neovim config.
I know this is a meme community, but a modicum of effort IS warranted IMO. https://superuser.com/questions/785187/sudoedit-why-use-it-over-sudo-vi is the top result of a search for "why use sudoedit" and a pretty good answer. "man sudoedit" also explains it pretty well, as shown by another commenter.
Hey, even memes can lead to learning opportunities!
From the arch wiki
Set SUDO_EDITOR in your profile to the editor of your choice, benefit is it retains your user profile for that editor, it's also less to type. For stuff like editing sudoers you're supposed to use visudo to edit that. Others can probably give better/more thorough reasons to consider it.
Correct but it uses the SUDO_EDITOR environment variable. The benefit is more security while editing system files, it creates a temporary file and when you finish it writes changes to the original. There is more to it but that is all I know, it prevents some exploits.
I believe sudoedit disables being able to spawn commands from the editor. In vi, I think it was :!