Should I open the files in /home/user/ as root?

Question

I do su root and then nano -w /home/myusername/configfile ... will this cause any problems ? Will it change the ownership of configfile ?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 29 '20 at 19:01

1

If the file does not exist yet then the new file will be owned by root.

If the file already exists, then it is just opened and the only attributes that change are atime and (if written to) mtime.

answered Jun 29 '20 at 19:01

Hauke Laging

How do I own all files under /home/myusername ? is there a command for it ? – l3gi0n Jun 29 '20 at 19:07
@l3gi0n chown -R myusername: /home/myusername – Hauke Laging Jun 29 '20 at 19:46
Would this also work: sudo chown -R myusername:myusername /home/myusername/* – l3gi0n Jun 29 '20 at 20:42
@l3gi0n chown must be run by root. Your command is fine. Just seems to make little sense to exclude the home directory. – Hauke Laging Jun 29 '20 at 20:46
I see. many thank. – l3gi0n Jun 29 '20 at 20:59

1 Answers1