Answer by DrBeco for Using vim to force edit a file when you opened without permissions

There seems to be some different approachs, depending on your current problem:

1. Readonly by vi. If your file has :set readonly you can
   • Use :w! to force write, or
   • Issue :set noreadonly and then just use normal :w
2. A permission problem (sudo): you can't write but you have sudo rights.
   • Issue: :w !sudo tee %. This will write the buffer to tee, a command that receives pipe information and can write to files. And as tee is run with sudo powers, tee can modify the file.
3. A permission problem (no sudo): you don't have rights to write the file and you don't have admin access.
   • Use :w! ~/tempfile.ext to write your changes to a temporary file and then take measures to move the temp file to the directory (send the temp file to the directory owner/admin).

You can read more about it here:

1. From StackOverflow
2. From Geekyboy
3. From Data Agaric

Shortcut

As it is often the case problem #2 (permission problem, with sudo), you can to your /etc/vim/vimrc (or ~/.vimrc) the following shortcut:

• cnoremap w!! execute 'silent! write !sudo tee % >/dev/null'<bar> edit!

Then you can just type :w!! to save with sudo powers. I won't explain it here but the references above cover many shortcuts.