Error when trying to sudo a command in Terminal

The sudo command doesn't seem to be the issue, though you don't show it. The error is related to the TextEdit application. You haven't given much information so not much to help you with. So give more info on what you're up to and what you're running.

 

That doesn't look like a valid command to me. Are you trying to change to that directory? If so you shouldn't need sudo. Just cd.

 

Do this instead:

Code:

sudo open /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/hosts

You need to use the open command to run a GUI application from the shell.

Alternately, for the simple editing you want to do, try:

Code:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

nano is a simple non-GUI text editor. If you know WordStar, you're good to go.

 

Looks like you're trying to open a file with TextEdit.app (and using sudo to get root privileges). The "normal" way of doing the former is either:

open -t /etc/hosts

or

open -a /Applications/TextEdit.app /etc/hosts

However, i'm not sure if adding a sudo prefix with 'open' will accomplish what you're after.

--

Check out the freeware TextWrangler. It will handle all the authorization within the app itself (no need for Terminal). Seriously, TextWrangler is a 'must-have' for the kind of thing you're trying to do there.


Having said that, the right approach is to use a standard editor like nano (or vi, emacs).

 

No, he needs to use sudo because a normal user account doesn't have write access to /etc/hosts.

 

Telling TextEdit to /etc/hosts is not a valid command.

Open on the other hand, that is if I'm not wrong, just tells Finder to open/execute a file/exec. Doing that with root privileges makes no difference as far as I know.

What are you actually trying to accomplish?

 

You're right, of course. My bad! FWIW, you have to be in an admin account to use sudo anyway.

I get the same error as the OP (I'm working from an admin account of course), but interestingly, TextEdit opens the host database file when I don't use sudo, but a blank text doc opens when I do use sudo.

 

There was actually no error in the command that was originally used. The first message that comes up is an error in the TextEdit.app program as previously stated. The error doesn't seem to be affecting the ability for the OP to open the /etc/hosts file as it does load in TextEdit after the initial error. I know some Terminal stuff changed in Snow Leopard compared to Leopard so the OP may be experiencing different results.

I guess the real question now is what do you want/need to change in the /etc/hosts file for the program you're having trouble with OP?

 

Yes it is, he is calling an executable, and giving it an argument of what file to use. There is nothing at all wrong with the command. In fact, that is how you open TextEdit as root. "sudo open TextEdit" will only run the open command as root, it will not open the app as root.

 

True enough, it would seem. Still, it's a rather odd way of going about things (in order to edit the hosts file). Also strange is: the session which runs this command appears to hang... as it waits for that instance of TextEdit to finish. [no prompt gets returned until "TextEdit" quits.]

Apparently, the error message in post #1 only happens if TextEdit was already running, in which case we will see two instances appear in the dock...

Code:

$ [COLOR="Blue"]ps axcu |sed '1p;/ Text/!d'[/COLOR]
USER       PID  %CPU %MEM      VSZ    RSS   TT  STAT STARTED      TIME COMMAND
root     41728   0.0  0.5   217900   6008 s000  S+   10:53AM   0:00.32 TextEdit
halito   41241   0.0  0.5   219112   6932   ??  S    10:52AM   0:00.37 TextEdit

But again, if someone isn't comfortable enough working on the command line to simply do sudo nano /etc/hosts, then i'd recommend using TextWrangler as a powerful GUI alternative.

 

Sounds perfectly normal to me. (nothing —not even bullets —gets echoed. Just proceed).

 

That is normal for the password input to not echo anything but I don't think that's what he means.

When you load Terminal now does it just hang at a blank screen without the usual prompt ever appearing where you would input commands?