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I made lengthy changes to a configuration file on a Ubuntu Linux computer with the vi editor. Unfortunately, I forgot to sudo first, so now I'm in the editor, but can't save my changes because of missing rights. Can I retroactively sudo the user on that terminal, or what would be the best course of action to take?

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See also stackoverflow.com/questions/1005/… – therefromhere Oct 10 '09 at 20:00

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In this case, I wrote file with :w /tmp/tmpfile. Then I go out and move /tmp/tmpfile to my old file with sudo rights.

That's it !

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this is what i end up doing, but i like wfaulk's answer .. if i can only remember it the next time i do this! :) – quack quixote Apr 19 '10 at 14:59
up vote 26 down vote

From SO:

:w !sudo tee %
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Couldn't you open another terminal and temporarily change the file's access rights?

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This is a bad idea. Probably wont ever be a big security problem, but it could be, and there's better and simpler solutions (like writing to a temporary file, or better, the :w !sudo tee % solution wfaulk posted – dbr Oct 10 '09 at 20:07

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