Cannot edit existing password using vim (or gvim)

Florian Margaine florian at margaine.com
Thu Dec 1 11:34:49 CET 2016


Hi,

On Dec 1, 2016 10:53 AM, "ads" <ads at whatho.net> wrote:
>
> I apologise for re-opening this topic. I did not receive the reply kindly
sent me by Renato Alves other than as part of a daily digest (I had only
subscribed to digests) and I don't know how to simulate a reply to keep the
old thread going.
>
> My original query was as follows:
>
>> When I try to edit an existing password using vim, when it comes time to
>> save (I enter :w as a vim command) I get a message
>> "/dev/shm/pass.tQVSIzXmX17hI/McsB5-test-pass.txt" E212: Cannot open file
>> for writing
>>
>> I'm sure I used to be able to edit passwords, but I can't work out why I
>> can't save to /dev/shm. Does anybody have any ideas?
>>
>> Steps to recreate:
>>
>> 1) pass add test-pass (followed by entering the password twice)
>> 2) pass show test-pass works fine and displays password from previous
>> step
>> 3) pass edit test-pass
>>
>> opens instance of gvim, so I make a change and :w and I get the error
>> message above.
>>
>>
>> Notes:
>>
>>
>>    1. mount | grep "shm" gives
>>    tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
>>    2. df -h | grep shm gives
>>    tmpfs                  3.8G  152M  3.7G   4% /dev/shm i.e. we're not
out
>>    of temp disk space (or indeed inodes, checked separately)
>>    3. crontab -e works, so saving to a temporary file seems to work
>>    4. with EDITOR set to nano, it seems to work
>
>
> Renato Alves replied:
>
>> Most likely permissions. Try: ls -ld /dev/shm
>>
> When I try ls -ld /dev/shm I get
>>
>>
>> drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 260 Dec  1 09:19 /dev/shm
>>
>> which looks good to me.
>>
> If I try touch /dev/shm/something then I get no message and something is
created in the /dev/shm directory.
>
> If I try vim /dev/shm/something-else, add a line, then :wq, it all works
fine (the something-else file is created).
>
> As I said above, if I do pass edit test-pass, then when I do :w I get
e.g. message
>
> "/dev/shm/pass.tQVSIzXmX17hI/McsB5-test-pass.txt" E212: Cannot open file
> for writing
>
> but if instead of :w I do :saveas /dev/shm/anything then it saves fine,
but of course the original password file is not changed.

What if you try to write in /dev/shm/foo/bar?

>
> It seems to be only when I try to write to the temporary filename that is
created as part of the process of executing pass edit etc. that I am
blocked from writing.
>
> Sorry to go on at such length. If anybody has a clue why this might be
happening, I would be grateful to know.
>
> Thanks.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Password-Store mailing list
> Password-Store at lists.zx2c4.com
> https://lists.zx2c4.com/mailman/listinfo/password-store
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/password-store/attachments/20161201/8523a3e3/attachment.html>


More information about the Password-Store mailing list