:wq in Vim does not save

vim

71,926

Solution 1

You need to open the file using superuser permissions as follows:

sudo vi /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

edit the file by pressing i and then save and exit by pressing Esc and then either :wq or :x or just :w to save.

Thanks to Riking for suggesting sudoedit: you can use sudoedit /path/to/file/filename for editing files owned by root rather than using sudo <editor> /pat/to/file/filename. This is useful for enterprise-level machines or production machines since sudoedit logs to /var/log/auth.log.

If you want to change the default editor for sudoedit, do the following:

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

and then press Return and choose the editor of your choice and again press Return.

Solution 2

/etc consists of all configurations files so to edit the files under /etc you need the superuser permissions but sometime we forget to use sudo. but at that time we can also use

:w !sudo tee %

then enter your administrator password

:q!

to exit successfully

71,926

Author by

Mohammad Reza Rezwani

Msc of computer networks.

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Mohammad Reza Rezwani over 1 year
I am trying to use :wq to save a text file I have edited in Vim, but when I enter :wq I get the error
```
E45: 'readonly' option is set (add ! to override)`  
```
When I add ! to :wq like :wq!, I get this:
```
"/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf"

"/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf" E212: Can't open file for writing
```
The file I want to edit is dhcpd on the /etc/dhcpd path.

How can I do this?
- Hauleth almost 10 years
  
  Prefer :x or ZZ to exit and save. It will write only on change.
Riking almost 10 years

I prefer sudoedit for these situations - it creates a temporary copy, runs the editor, and copies the result. If you previously chose nano for that command, run EDITOR=vi sudoedit /etc/file.
Sajesh Kumar almost 8 years

You can add cmap w!! w !sudo tee > /dev/null % to your .vimrc to allow saving via this method with :w!!. If you're interested in why this method works see stackoverflow.com/questions/2600783/…
muru almost 8 years

sudoedit also picks up on the EDITOR variable, it's easier to set that than configure alternatives