No such file or directory. But it exists

Question

I'm trying to access the etc/fstab by the following command and getting the error.

Bash command:

sudo echo "swapfile none swap sw 0 0" >> etc/fstab

Error:

-bash: etc/fstab: No such file or directory

Then when I trying to check the existence of etc/fstab by ls -l and getting it there. But why I got an error in the first entry point?

Btw, I'm using Ubuntu server on my Virtual machine.

Does this answer your question? Redirecting stdout to a file you don't have write permission on — Artem S. Tashkinov, Nov 24 '22 at 07:40
Do you mean /etc/fstab or etc/fstab? Are you in the root directory? — user1794469, Dec 02 '22 at 01:21

Chris Davies · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-24T07:57:51.600

5

Two issues here

The file path needs the leading / here, so it should be /etc/fstab
You'll then find that despite your sudo command you get a "permission denied" error. This is answered at Redirecting stdout to a file you don't have write permission on

edited Nov 24 '22 at 07:57

answered Nov 24 '22 at 07:41

Chris Davies

Thank you, but in the second point as you mentioned I get an error about permissions. I tried to add "tee" keyword but error caused again. – Danil Popov Nov 24 '22 at 07:52
permission denied :) – Danil Popov Nov 24 '22 at 07:59
@danilpopov You need to modify the tee command with sudo, not the echo command. – Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI Nov 24 '22 at 08:00
@Shadur Yes I did it, removed echo, and added a sudo tee . But it didn't helped. – Danil Popov Nov 24 '22 at 08:04
Please show us! Edit your question to add the new command and its result – Chris Davies Nov 24 '22 at 08:10
@Danil Point (2) above explains this. Your non-sudo shell does all redirections first (because the commands in the pipeline have to inherit the file description when they are started). The sudo comes too late. Read the reference, please. – Paul_Pedant Nov 24 '22 at 09:56
... At this point I really urge the OP not to monkey around with /etc/fstab using scripts they don't understand, because odds of them breaking something critical approach 1. – Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI Nov 24 '22 at 13:10

1 Answers1