Who is file owner if the file is created using sudo command?

Question

I logged in using my username ravbholua:

ravbholua@ravbholua-Aspire-5315:~$ echo $LOGNAME ravbholua

I create file named a1:

ravbholua@ravbholua-Aspire-5315:~$ echo>a1
ravbholua@ravbholua-Aspire-5315:~$ ll a1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ravbholua ravbholua 1 Oct  8 09:57 a1

As expected the above file has me (ravbholua) as owner.

Next I create a2 using sudo with echo command:

ravbholua@ravbholua-Aspire-5315:~$ sudo echo>a2
ravbholua@ravbholua-Aspire-5315:~$ ll a2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ravbholua ravbholua 1 Oct  8 09:57 a2

The owner is me only, i.e. ravbholua.

Now I create a3 using sudo again but with vim command:

ravbholua@ravbholua-Aspire-5315:~$ sudo vim a3
ravbholua@ravbholua-Aspire-5315:~$ ll a3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10 Oct  8 09:57 a3

Oh! how come the owner changes now. It's not me but root. Why such variation with echo and vim! It's a surprise that with change of commands how can the owner of the created file changes.

Answer 1

The second example runs echo under sudo, but the redirection happens under the original shell.

sudo bash -c "echo > a4"

Answer 2

sudo is just a command.

So for your first example: sudo echo>a2

sudo is the command. And while you have the redirection butted up against the echo, that doesn't mean anything.

For example: echo cat /etc/passwd > /tmp/foo You won't get the contents of /etc/passwd in /tmp/foo. You'll just have cat /etc/passwd. sudo is no different. The echo part is just an argument to sudo. sudo does use it to execute things, but the shell doesn't know that.

That's one of the ways where sudo access is very different from doing things as root.

For your example where you use sudo vim a3 sudo runs vim a3 for you as root. And vim runs as root, so the file is owned by root.