Text editor that can edit using sudo over ssh?

Question

I'm trying to edit files on a remote Amazon EC2 Linux instance. I'm currently just sshing in and using nano, but would really like a graphical text editor. I have two problems:

1. I have to use sudo to edit these server files when I ssh in.
2. I can only login with the key Amazon gave me. Ex: ssh -i Andrew.pem [email protected]

Please help! I'm not picky, just any graphical text editor since using nano is a huge pain.

Answer 1

To help anyone that just need a quick command line text editor:

you can use vi:

vi file-name.txt

or nano:

nano file-name.txt

optionally use sudo if editing the file, eg:

sudo nano file-name.txt

Answer 2

For remote editing, there are lots of options here: This answer, like any other, is sure to become outdated as more options enter the field.

• For vim, the netrw module meets this need, and is shipped with the editor by default.
• For emacs, this is available with TRAMP.
• For the ATOM editor, see the remote-files plugin.
• For IntelliJ, editing files on remote hosts is supported in the commercial edition.
• For Eclipse, see the Remote System Explorer from the Target Management project.

I'd suggest starting with the editor you prefer and evaluating options from there. If you set up your SSH session to be able to authenticate directly to root (password auth is best disabled for root, but if you have sudo you can install RSA keys), then you'll be able to specify root as a target user for any of the above.

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By contrast, if you really do need sudo, you still have options:

• See Using tramp to open files sudoed to root on the Emacs wiki. New versions also support a ssh+sudo transport, meaning this wiki entry may already be out-of-date.

Answer 3

amazon now acquire Cloud9, which is a browser-based IDE that can edit your EC2.

https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/

Answer 4

Just modify the appropriate files on your local machine and scp the file into the remote machine.

scp <local_machine_path_to_file> remoteUser@remoteHostName:<filePath>