I know this question's been asked before, and I have tried using su -, sudo, sudoedit, sudo nano, sudo sh and various other combinations.

I have OpenMediaVault, which is basically Debian as an appliance. I am attempting to edit /etc/apt/sources.list in order to get Plex working, but no matter which way I try, it will not let me save sources.list - it's always a permission error. I have not modified the permissions for the file in any way whatsoever.

Can someone please advise how I go about modifying the file? I have root access, via putty. I have also tried editing the file via webmin's GUI - no luck.

Thanks in advance

If you've root access on that machine, then definitely you can edit the file as root user. On the other hand, there is no point of using su until you do not have sudo privileges. In that condition, add your user into /etc/sudoers file and give it access to modify system files or even ALL access.

Hi shivaa, I definitely have root access and I definitely cannot edit the file.

Currently my /etc/sudoers file shows:

Defaults env_reset

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
# /etc/sudoers
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
#

Is this what you were referring to?

Can you tell us exactly what you typed on the terminal in order to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file. Also tell us how the system responded to that command.
Can you post the output of the this command:
jdk

Yep, here goes.

Logged on as root

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

At the bottom of the GNU nano screen, it states [Read 15 lines (Warning: No write permission)]

I get the same results using the same command after typing su (enter) then the above, and sudo sh as well

Here's the output from the command

# ls -l /etc/apt/sources.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 713 Mar 1 00:17 /etc/apt/sources.list

Thanks for the help!

Permissions are okay. In the meantime, once change it's ownership to your normal user, let's say user symowallo, as:
And then try to update the package again (using aptitude update or the way you were trying).
If it doesn't work, then as root user, modify the /etc/sudoers file and add following line to grant full permission to your user symowallo (line marked in red in below example; Note: Do it very carefully).
After this try to edit the source.list file.

if u have root access on root machine the yoy definately access that root.

Filesystem mounted read-only?

ACLs?

My first guess would be that the rootfs is mounted read-only.

If you have root access there is no point at alll to fiddle with sudo configuration. Please provide the output of

@symowallo, you are not alone. Other OpenMediaVault (OMV) users have encountered the same problem.

It turns out the OMV maintainers decided to lock the 'sources.list' file after the installation of any Extras because people were "messing it up." Seems a bit heavy handed but I guess there are only a few maintainers versus a massive user community so they need to "idiot-proof" the distro as much as possible.

Anyway, the following threads should help:
http://forums.openmediavault.org/vie...hp?f=12&t=3855
http://forums.openmediavault.org/vie...php?f=3&t=3886

The bottom line is you need to create your own '<some other name>.list' file under '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' , add the repository references you need to that file then tell apt about them by running 'apt-get update'. It worked for me

Joined specifically to help with this question, so hope it proves useful. Good luck.

Thanks for the heads up CitizenJ

OMV is Linux so the locking mechanism should be standard Linux. What is the output of

Thanks for the replies everyone, I really appreciate it. I've not been able to get back to this due to absence... However I am back.

Mount output below, although I think the OMV locking down of the file is the culprit. I really tried to find others with this issue and now I feel silly because others have had the problem and I somehow didn't find the answer - ah well.

I'm now creating my own list to deal with this, as CitizenJ mentioned.

Thanks so much for the help thus far, not solved yet but I am giving it a go now.

/dev/sdf1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/mapper/WD--3TB-movies on /media/68d7e7bf-0a66-468f-a892-13b2f38ffb8c type ext4 (rw,noexec,_netdev,acl,user_xattr,usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0)
/dev/mapper/WD--slow--2-music on /media/96ff26b7-6fd2-46a4-8be3-42c643c4e3f2 type ext4 (rw,noexec,_netdev,acl,user_xattr,usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0)
/dev/mapper/raid1-critical--raid1 on /media/f3f75da4-5ae4-4bb4-ab84-44d66de4329e type ext4 (rw,noexec,_netdev,acl,user_xattr,usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0)
/dev/mapper/WD--slow--1-misc on /media/b780b9dc-be8c-453e-88d2-2b5010c775f6 type ext4 (rw,noexec,_netdev,acl,user_xattr,usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0)
/media/68d7e7bf-0a66-468f-a892-13b2f38ffb8c/videos on /home/ftp/videos type none (rw,bind)
/media/68d7e7bf-0a66-468f-a892-13b2f38ffb8c/videos on /export/videos type none (rw,bind)
rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)

/dev/sdb1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/mapper/MEDIA-MEDIA on /media/01f40836-07c4-4839-a8f5-7e3b8ce41c51 type ext4 (rw,noexec,_netdev,acl,user_xattr,usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0)
/media/01f40836-07c4-4839-a8f5-7e3b8ce41c51/lost+found on /home/ftp/Downloads type none (rw,bind)
/media/01f40836-07c4-4839-a8f5-7e3b8ce41c51/lost+found/Series on /export/Series type none (rw,bind)
/media/01f40836-07c4-4839-a8f5-7e3b8ce41c51/lost+found/nzb on /export/NZB type none (rw,bind)
/media/01f40836-07c4-4839-a8f5-7e3b8ce41c51/lost+found/Movies on /export/Movies type none (rw,bind)
/media/01f40836-07c4-4839-a8f5-7e3b8ce41c51/lost+found/music on /export/Music type none (rw,bind)
rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)