How to change visudo editor from nano to vim?

Question

When I use visudo, it always opens it with nano editor. How to change the editor to vim?

Answer 1

Type sudo update-alternatives --config editor

You will get a text like below.

There are 4 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).

  Selection    Path                Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /bin/nano            40        auto mode
  1            /bin/ed             -100       manual mode
  2            /bin/nano            40        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/vim.basic   30        manual mode
  4            /usr/bin/vim.tiny    10        manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 3

Find vim.basic or vim.tiny selection number. Type it and press enter. Next time when you open visudo your editor will be vim

Answer 2

You have to call it like:

sudo EDITOR=vim visudo

To make visudo always use vim, add a line to your /etc/sudoers file near the top that reads:

Defaults editor=/usr/bin/vim 

A word of warning: when modifying your sudoers configuration, keep a terminal open with a root shell in it (with sudo -i). You never know, and you can easily get locked out of root.