Central Queensland Linux User Group

Sudoers is one of those core files where if you make a mistake it is easy to lock yourself out of your own system. Though not as common these days, some systems use vi as the default editor for the sudoers file.

Don't get me wrong, vi is a great editor, but hardly intuitive for someone who is new to Linux. If you do not consider yourself a power vi user, and want to be safe, as you can lock yourself out by messing up the editing of the sudoers file, then use nano or a graphic editor like gedit, leafpad or mousepad instead, by setting your editor of choice like this in a terminal: export EDITOR=nano visudo

Much safer.