[nylug-talk] Ubuntu's lack of root.

[Ron Guerin]

David Rosenstrauch wrote:
> mike at jurney.org wrote:
>> Seriously.  You shouldn't ever be root unless you're doing something that
>> absolutely requires it.  Doing `sudo vim /etc/hosts` is smarter in every
>> way than doing `ssh root at localhost (log in); vim /etc/hosts; (leave root
>> shell sitting around open in an xterm for the next 3 days in case you
>> need
>> to do something else); logout;`.
> 
> FYI (if you weren't aware already), "sudoedit <some-file>" is a nice
> shortcut for "sudo <your-favorite-editor> <some-file>".

I know someone who just got himself into trouble on Ubuntu by screwing
up /etc/sudoers .  So my FYI for the evening is this:

   visudo

NEVER edit /etc/sudoers directly on a box where root is disabled!
visudo invokes the editor you have defined by the VISUAL or EDITOR
environment variables, and refuses to save your changes to /etc/sudoers
if there are any syntax errors in the file.

ex:
   ~ export VISUAL="nano"
   ~ visudo

- Ron