Open a file with su/sudo inside Emacs

Chris_Conway_1412 0
Viewed 59523

Suppose I want to open a file in an existing Emacs session using su or sudo, without dropping down to a shell and doing sudoedit or sudo emacs. One way to do this is

C-x C-f /sudo::/path/to/file

but this requires an expensive round-trip through SSH. Is there a more direct way?

[EDIT] @JBB is right. I want to be able to invoke su/sudo to save as well as open. It would be OK (but not ideal) to re-authorize when saving. What I'm looking for is variations of find-file and save-buffer that can be "piped" through su/sudo.

sudo file-permissions emacs
10 Answers

The nice thing about Tramp is that you only pay for that round-trip to SSH when you open the first file. Sudo then caches your credentials, and Emacs saves a handle, so that subsequent sudo-opened files take much less time.

I haven't found the extra time it takes to save burdening, either. It's fast enough, IMO.

Denis_Bueno_141130
Teddy_544350

Your example doesn't start ssh at all, at least not with my version of TRAMP ("2.1.13-pre"). Both find-file and save-buffer work great.

jfm3_111380

Ugh. Perhaps you could open a shell in Emacs and exec sudo emacs.

The problem is that you presumably don't just want to open the file. You want to be able to save it later. Thus you need your root privs to persist, not just exist for opening the file.

Sounds like you want Emacs to become your window manager. It's bloated enough without that. :)

JBB_123320

I find sudo edit function very useful for that. After opening a file, press s-e to have sudo access to edit/save the file.

user_129802610
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