Safe way to edit system configuration files?

What is a safe way to edit a system configuration file? I mean I did this twice: I edited rc.conf, rebooted and the system failed to boot. Then I had to edit out the typos with a LiveCD.
Is there like a visudo (that edits /etc/sudoers) for rc.conf, xorg.conf, fstab and so on?
Thanks!

Majorix wrote:
No I am of course editing those files with sudo. But the problem is, gedit won't check the file for possible errors, thus if you too oversee it and try to reboot using those system files, you will fail.
visudo checks you while you edit, so if you make an error it will warn you in the end.
I was asking if there was a similar tool for the rest of the configuration files.
Sorry for not being clear.
Oh -- a kind of a babysitter, you mean?
j/k, i screw up config files all the time.
No, as far as I know there is nothing like that for most files. some do have functionality like that, like I think lilo warns you when you write to lilo.conf and the file has errors. and you can run something like testparm for the smb.conf file, and I think there something similar to check apache config files, etc. but for the standard system config files or arch-specific files like rc.conf, fstab, etc. I don't think there is anything. you just have to be sure not to make any mistakes!

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The colors I chose look good (imo) with the terminal background and color settings that I use, but might not look good, or even readable, with yours, so simply change the color names in the code snippet to whatever you prefer - valid color names are:
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Update [2012-01-28]: Made some more improvements to the syntax definition (see post)
Last edited by sas (2012-02-01 15:26:43)

doug piston wrote:I deal with alot of .mk files and would love to see it there.
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Last edited by sas (2012-02-01 15:18:52)

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