How to edit a file on a server

There are a number of common editors for editing files in a terminal. The most frequently used are ​nano, ​vim, ​emacs. Each of these editors comes with a level of difficulty, the easiest being nano.

To open a file with the respective editors, you will need to enter the following commands respectively:

• nano /path/to/file
• vim /path/to/file
• emacs /path/to/file

Once a file is open you will need to know how to navigate within each program. Please see the documentation.

• Within nano get help by typing Control+g
• Within vim get help by typing : help (that's the colon key then help.
• Within emacs follow the tutorial with Control+h t.