12-30-2019
Practically speaking,
It depends on your risk management model.
If your system is prone to crashing or locking up, then it might be a better idea to copy the file to another server and do the edits, then load it up to the server and move it into place.
Sounds fishy, however, if your server is so unstable that it is prone to crashing or has such resource problems.
Normally, and I mean everyday on remote, production servers, I copy the file I want to edit and add a ".backup" or ".neo" extension on it, or something like that. But I generally edit the original file and save it to disk when I'm done.
When editing, you are editing a copy in memory, not the copy on disk; so if the system crashes while you are editing, you only lose the changes in the editor, not the file on disk.
I guess, one could say that when you cross the street, you should look right, then left, then up, and then down, and to be safe, look behind you too. However, most of us look right and left. If you want to edit copies and move them that's cool but it is not going to change much in your life compared to editing the original and saving it.
What is important, as mentioned by others and also by me again here, is to make a quick backup copy of a file before . you edit. I do this most of the time, even when I have offsite backups.
Making a copy, editing the copy, and moving it to replace the original file is still "not perfect" because you have still written over your original. You should at least make a copy, edit the original, and save it, knowing you have a fresh backup. If you copy the original, edit the copy, and move it to overwrite the original, where is your fresh backup? You don't have one (in this scenario). Ditto if you copy the file you just edited over the original, you then have two potentially "fat fingered" copies.
So, what's the point? What is the risk? What is the system vulnerability you are trying to mitigate?
Last edited by hicksd8; 12-30-2019 at 01:10 PM..
This User Gave Thanks to Neo For This Post:
9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting
1. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
hi! I am a newbee. I would really appreciate if you can answer the following question:
I have a huge data file, 214MB with several coloumns. I need to delete the very last line of the file. Everything I know takes a lot of time to do it ( because I have to open the file in an editor or run a... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: Garuda
3 Replies
2. What is on Your Mind?
For those with the iPhones here might read up how to wipe your personal data off the phone before reselling or trade-in. ;)
source: Nuclear Elephant: iPhone Wipe
June 1, 2008: Making your iPhone Safe for Resale
Since my posts regarding the iPhone restore mode being insufficient for wiping... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: sparcguy
0 Replies
3. What is on Your Mind?
I know that you already know the answer to the question. It just springed in my mind after what happened yesterday. I was getting some books off of Amazon.com, since they are cheeper than bookstore, and my mother said something that made me laugh 'till I couldn't breathe. I have a Debian Lenny... (12 Replies)
Discussion started by: Texasone
12 Replies
4. Solaris
Hi all
I need to change my current metaset setname from lh-rms02ds to lh-lgwrms01ds. Is it possible ?? I know within veritas I do a vxedit, is there a way in SVM ?
I notice theres a metarename, but this is for the metadevice level.
Any tips ? help ?? Or do I need to delete /... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: sbk1972
2 Replies
5. Shell Programming and Scripting
Hi,
I am having a file which is fix length and comma seperated. And I want to replace values for one column.
I am reading file line by line in variable $LINE and then replacing the string.
Problem is after changing value and writing new file temp5.txt, formating of original file is getting... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: Mruda
8 Replies
6. Shell Programming and Scripting
I have a text file that has data like:
Data "12345#22"
Fred
ID 12345
Age 45
Wilma
Dino
Data "123#22"
Tarzan
ID 123
Age 33
Jane
I need to figure out a way of adding 1,000,000 to the specific lines (always same format) in the file, so it becomes:
Data "1012345#22"
Fred
ID... (16 Replies)
Discussion started by: say170
16 Replies
7. Shell Programming and Scripting
I have a file which has 10 million records in it. When am trying to edit the file with vi, the following error occurs:
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
"file1" Value too large for defined data type
Is there any way that I can edit this file without using vi? Any help would be really appreciated.... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: bobby1015
8 Replies
8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
Hi All,
Please tell me the use of # /Unix.org file it has reserved a huge disk space, I want to know is it safer to truncate or delete.
Thanks - Rukshan.:) (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: rukshan4u2c
1 Replies
9. Shell Programming and Scripting
Dear Guru's
I'm using Putty and want to edit a file. I know we generally use vi editor to do it. As I'm not good in using vi editor, I want to convert the vi into something like text pad. Is there any option in Putty to do the same ? Thanks for your response.
Srini (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: thummi9090
6 Replies
LEARN ABOUT SUSE
mailcap.order
MAILCAP.ORDER(5) Order Mailcap Entries MAILCAP.ORDER(5)
NAME
/etc/mailcap.order - the mailcap ordering specifications
DESCRIPTION
The order of entries in the /etc/mailcap file can be altered by editing the /etc/mailcap.order file. Each line of that file specifies a
package and an optional mime type. Mailcap entries that match will be placed in the order of this file. Entries that don't match will be
placed later.
Example
mime-support:*/*
gv:application/postscript
netscape:text/html
less:text/*
emacs:text/*
The above would make any entries provided by the mime-support package (as found in the /usr/lib/mime/packages directory) take priority over
everything else. The gv package will be used over anything else when it comes to postscript documents. Netscape will be used for any html
documents and less will be used for any remaining text documents. However, since neither netscape or less provide for editing documents,
any edit or compose actions will fall through to the emacs rules.
After modifying this file, be sure to run /usr/sbin/update-mime (as root) to propagate the changes into the /etc/mailcap file.
Remember that this files takes package names and not executable names. If you want to define rules that reference specific programs, the
best way is to include them in ~/.mailcap or the user section of the /etc/mailcap file.
LIMITATIONS
There is currently no way to break out a certain type from a wildcard rule. If, for example, both xv and gimp were to specify "image/*"
rules, it isn't possible to use xv for gif images but use gimp for jpeg images.
Also, I would like to add the ability to specify certain actions in the rules. For example, if netscape were to have an edit rule but I
wanted to use emacs for editing/creating html documents, I could place a line like
emacs:text/* action=edit|compose
before the netscape entry. The update-mime program would then spit out entries such that netscape view rule comes before the emacs view
rule but have the netscape edit rule comes after the emacs edit rule.
SEE ALSO
mailcap(5) run-mailcap(1) update-mime(8)
AUTHOR
The mailcap.order specification was written by Brian White <bcwhite@pobox.com>
Debian Project 16th Aug 1998 MAILCAP.ORDER(5)