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Paul A.
Asked: 2019-10-10 14:07:00 +0800 CST

Running kate as root

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I'm using Kubuntu 18.04 and I want to run the kate editor with root privileges sudo kate produces the message running kate as root is not possible. I think that's utterly silly. How can I bypass it?

Answer: just edit the file, even if it's a system file, using plain oldkate. You don't need root privileges to edit it; you only need root privileges to save it. When you save a system file, you'll be asked for the root password. Supply it and the save takes place. Easy!!

root kate

2 Answers

  1. You can edit system files with Kate 19.04.3 (available in Kubuntu 19.10) or in Kubuntu 19.04 (with kubuntu-backports ppa) installed.

    Simply open the file you wish to edit in Kate, edit it, and click Ctrl+S. A PolicyKit window will appear prompting you for your password. Provide it and click Okay.

    editing system files in Kate

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  2. I think I may have a newer version of kate installed. I'm running 18.04 and I get the following message:

    Executing Kate as root is not possible. To edit files as root use:
SUDO_EDITOR=kate sudoedit <file>

    so it seems you can edit files as root by using the following command:

    SUDO_EDITOR=kate sudoedit <file>

    However, you won't be able to edit files as root in any directory that is not owned by root. Because of this, you must also specify a filename when you run kate using sudoedit.

    You can easily set an alias for sudokate by adding the following line to your ~/.bashrc file:

    alias sudokate='SUDO_EDITOR=kate sudoedit'

    Then, run the following command to source your ~/.bashrc file:

    source ~/.bashrc

    Also, don't forget to source your ~/.bashrc file in all other open terminals to apply the changes.

    Now, you can run the sudokate command to edit files in directories owned by root.

    SOURCE

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