When I try to edit my /etc/hostname
file, using sudo nano /etc/hostname
(or any other editor) I get the following:
Error writing /etc/hostname: Permission denied
I then tried:
sudo chmod u+w ./hostname
And got the error:
chmod: changing permissions of `./hostname': Operation not permitted
I get the same error trying to add write permissions to any use or group.
This is what ls
shows:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 2012-06-18 12:25 /etc/hostname
Any idea why and what can I do about it?
I'm running Ubuntu 11.10.
Best Answer
Sounds like your
/etc/hostname
file is 'immutable', by way of having the immutable filesystem attribute. You can check withlsattr
, and should see something like this:if there's an
i
in there, your file is immutable. You can change this with:Then you should be able to edit it.
For more information about filesystem attributes, and the attributes that are available, see the manpage for
chattr
:This article is also useful.