sudo in terminal

[Rick Stevens]

Alexander Dalloz wrote:
> Am Di, den 22.02.2005 schrieb H. Crissman um 20:13:
> 
> 
>>When I "vi example.file" the text inside the file is color coded based 
>>on format (ie. commented out lines are blue). But when I "sudo vi 
>>example.file" that color coding is lost. How can I enable that when I 
>>edit a file using sudo? It really helps when you are looking at a long 
>>config file.
> 
> 
>>H. Crissman
> 
> 
> vi is not vim. vi is just an alias to vim. So if you use "sudo" you
> invoke vi instead of vim. vi has no highlighting capabilities, which is
> even a feature provided by the vim-enhanced package.
> 
> sudo vim <file>
> 
> and you have back your syntax highlighting.

Yup.  Remember, "sudo" changes your UID, but does NOT give you the same
environment (variables, aliases, etc.), since the user's login scripts
aren't run.  In fact, "su username" doesn't give you "username's"
environment either.  "su - username" DOES give you the environment (the 
"-" makes it look like a login, so the login scripts are run).

Just one of the subtle differences.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-      A day for firm decisions!!!   Well, then again, maybe not!    -
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