Ubuntu – n easier or more ‘correct’ way to open gedit as root

geditunity-dash

I have ubuntu 12.04 running in a virtual machine on virtual box. Its existence is mainly as a 'toy' to play about with Ubuntu, so for this reason I wanted the GUI (is that what 'Dash' is in ubuntu 12.04? Anyway…)

One thing I am currently using this machine for is a LAMP server. I use 'gedit' to edit my files, but because I haven't correctly set permissions yet I just open it with sudo in terminal.

Just now, to try to simplify this process I created a shell script on the desktop with a very simple job – sudo gedit

I can't help thinking there must be an even more obvious way to open gedit as root from the GUI than this. So is there?

Edit: I just 'improved' my script by replacing sudo with gksudo. Now I don't have to have a terminal window open while gedit is open. So I guess this is quite convenient for now 🙂 It would be good, for the sake of knowledge, to know if this is anything close to how the more seasoned ubuntu users would do this type of thing.

Best Answer

Use gksudo gedit.

gksudo is the equivalent of sudo for graphical programs, which are not safe to run using sudo.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Unable to run gedit as a different user

gedit is a graphical program, so just as you would not run it as root with straight sudo, you shouldn't run it as another user with straight sudo or straight su.

Instead, if you (i.e., foo) have the power to run programs as another user with sudo, this is probably the easiest way for footo run gedit as bar:

xhost +local:bar
gksu -u bar gedit

If you don't have the power to run programs as another user with sudo but you can su to bar, then this is the easiest way:

gksu -w -u bar gedit

The -w flag (equivalent to --su-mode) makes gksu (which is a frontend for both sudo and su) use su instead of sudo.

You shouldn't need to run any corresponding xhost command to make gksu -w ... work.

If you want a graphical terminal instance (gnome-terminal) from which you can run anything as bar including graphical applications, you should consider just running a new instance of gnome-terminal as bar (which you can do the same way as running gedit, detailed above).

Ubuntu – Can’t open Gedit as root

Finally have found an answer. From this question Cannot connect to X Server when running app with sudo and especially this question Error when trying to run an app with sudo or gksudo.

I added the line Defaults env_keep+="DISPLAY" to the end of the visudo file at /etc/sudoers.

Yay, my sudo gedit is back!

EDIT

Got the same error again for sometime.

Did some more research, especially this answer https://askubuntu.com/a/137584/163331 and realized I had to add more options to the visudo file. Instead of Defaults env_keep+="DISPLAY", I used this line:

Defaults env_keep="XAUTHORIZATION XAUTHORITY TZ PS2 PS1 PATH LS_COLORS KRB5CCNAME HOSTNAME HOME DISPLAY COLORS"

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Unable to run gedit as a different user

Ubuntu – Can’t open Gedit as root

Related Question