A simple question ( if you know unix, personally I'm an NT bod )
We've got a Raptor install on Solaris, I've been told only to use vi to edit configs, host's etc and never to use the text editor as it "could screw things up"

Is this true???

John

Yes I'm afraid that's right.

Other editors such as emacs can treat carriage return and line feeds in a different way to which some programs expect and can therefore cause your system to feck up.

I remember writing a script that would rebuild 250Gb of logical disks in HVM in emacs, but because I had the wrong settings the script fell over and left me having to delete all the logical disks and manually go in and find the lines with the extra info in. http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/mad.gif It was ok, cus it was a DR test, but it still was annoying.

Vi is a major pain the Ass to use, but it's also one of the few editors that work in single user mode(on standard UNIX systems).

I liked and used emacs whenever I could, but for system config stuff like fstab's etc then i'd use vi because of the above reasons


[This message has been edited by Neil Smalley (edited 08 June 2001).]

Never heard of it. Probably the purpetrator of the rumour was of the vi collective who thinks emacs is the work of the devil.

Learn and use vi anyhow, as its the one editor that is almost guaranteed to be on your system no matter what (unless you *really* like pain and want to learn edit). It's so straightforward! H=cursor left, K=cursor up... http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif

Sometimes http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif

I use vi all the time at work (in my leading edge technology company http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/wink.gif) and we much prefer it over the standard notepad style editors.

Don't use emacs personally as I like vi http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/redface.gif

Only problem with vi is that it is not the most intuitive of editors, although it is one of the most powerful (if you can write gobble-de-gook commands http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif)

The vuepad editor I've used (on HPUX) can put erroneous characters at the end of files (as mentioned). This caused us no end of grief when compiling source code as the compiler interprets it with some bizarre message http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif

(Edit : misread original post...thought it was 'complaining' about vi!)


[This message has been edited by Hanslow (edited 08 June 2001).]

Thanks for the replies...i was wondering if it was the guy who put the firewall in just wanting to make things look so highly complex that we call him whenever we need to add a static route!!! http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/sardonic.gif

I'm gonna have to learn to use vi by the sounds what fun http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/cheesy.gif

Cheerz

I always use UltraEdit (www.ultraedit.com) to edit Unix files.

It's a PC tool that will happily convert from Dos to Unix (i.e. remove the carriage return).

Stefe.

After I learned vi, I wanted to master it. Eventually I encountered:
The Ultimate Guide to the VI and EX Text Editors by Hewlett-Packard Company, ISBN 0-8053-4460-8, HP part number 97005-90015, Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc.

See Amazon US

There's no problem using a text editor under normal circumstances, as long as you know enough sed to strip out all the poxy ^M 's that get inserted.

Our developers took weeks to figure out they could turn off these control characters in ColdFusion Studio, and I'm still cleaning the mess up. The application works with them left in, but I'm a purist ......

:0,$s/[ctrl-v][ctrl-m]//g works for me

SteveM

Get PFE (programmer File Editor) from

Raptor to firewalls are so secure, that if your not careful it stops you from remotely managing it.. a lesson some collegues of mine learned at my last place of work http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif

And yes, vi the files (as loadsa people said above http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif