\nI was working on some sysadmin tasks on a freshly installed server, and I found out the crontab editor was not what I expected it to be. I really like vi (or vim) for command line editing, so I wanted \u2018crontab -e\u2019 to use vim instead of something else. To make that happen, I put this into my roots .bashrc file (location: ~\/.bashrc):<\/p>\n
or from the command line<\/p>\n If using CentOS7 – System Default Edito<\/strong>r Per User Default<\/strong> Activating Changes<\/strong> Testing<\/strong> I keep forgetting this, so I decided to blog it. Don’t forget to reload the bashrc by doing this:<\/p>\n If you are in the same situation and want to change the editor to nano, here is the simple command that will change your default OS editor.<\/p>\n Now when you run:<\/p>\n Nano will open up. Don’t forget to logout and log back in to see the changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was working on some sysadmin tasks on a freshly installed server, and I found out the crontab editor was not what I expected it to be. I really like vi (or vim) for command line editing, so I wanted \u2018crontab -e\u2019 to use vim instead of something else. To make that happen, I… <\/p>\n
\nexport EDITOR=vim
\nexport VISUAL=vim
\n<\/code><\/p>\n
\nexport EDITOR=\/usr\/bin\/vim
\nexport VISUAL=vim
\n<\/code> <\/p>\n
\nDuring login, a number of scripts are run to setup the environment. In CentOS, a file for each subject is used. These are stored in a system profile directory, \/etc\/profile.d\/. There are two environment variables that control which editor to use.<\/p>\ncat <
\nexport VISUAL=\"vim\"
\nexport EDITOR=\"vim\"
\nEOF<\/code><\/p>\n
\nIf a user wishes to set the default editor for themselves, it can be, instead, be done in the user’s bash profile.<\/p>\ncat <
\nexport VISUAL=\"nano\"
\nexport EDITOR=\"nano\"
\nEOF<\/code><\/p>\n
\nSome of the changes made won’t take effect on the current session. Log out and back in to activate the changes.<\/p>\n
\nScheduling jobs is one multi-layer process that uses a text editor. Editing the current user’s scheduled jobs is one way to test which editor is the default.
\ncrontab -e<\/code>
\nIf it is still nano, use ctrl+x to exit. If you are using vim, congratulations! Use “:q” to exit.<\/p>\nsource ~\/.bashrc<\/code><\/p>\n export VISUAL=\u2019pico -w\u2019<\/code><\/p>\ncrontab -e<\/code><\/p>\n