I've lost sudo access and I don't really understand why

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 19 Mar 2020 08:49:17 +0000, Chris Green wrote: 
>Only necessary on a multi-user system to prevent simultaneous edits of
>the files, if there's just me/you then a straight edit is fine.

Hi,

my understanding is, that vipw also provides basic sanity checks, and
checks for parse errors, too.

Actually man vigr mentions "any necessary processing" which is a bit
ambiguous:
 
"vipw  edits  the  password file after setting the appropriate locks,
and does any necessary processing after the password file is unlocked."

OTOH man visudo clearly remarks:

"visudo edits the sudoers file in a safe fashion, analogous to vipw(8).
 visudo locks the sudoers file against multiple simultaneous edits,
provides basic sanity checks, and checks for parse errors before
installing the edited file."

Regards,
Ralf