This has been addressed in nano's SVN, r5580. In version 2.5.2 and higher, nano will ignore $HOME when it is effectively running as root, and will therefore not create or change anything in the home directory of the user that invokes nano through a plain sudo.
(It also means that it will not use the normal user's .nanorc, but only the global /etc/nanorc plus the .nanorc file in /root. Which is kind of nice, because you can then give a root-privileged nano another appearance from that of a normal user, by using for example 'set titlecolor brightwhite,red'.) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to nano in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1471459 Title: First run of nano creates a directory in $HOME, if run as sudo will be root owned Status in One Hundred Papercuts: Confirmed Status in nano package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: If nano is started for the first with sudo then a root owned directory named .nano is created in the user's $HOME directory. If 1st. started as a user then the user owns .nano & ownership will not be altered by subsequent use of sudo nano. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10 Package: nano 2.4.1-1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-22.22-generic 3.19.8-ckt1 Uname: Linux 3.19.0-22-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.17.3-0ubuntu4 Architecture: amd64 Date: Sat Jul 4 20:06:16 2015 InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-02-25 (128 days ago) InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Alpha amd64 (20150224) SourcePackage: nano UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/1471459/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
