Sed: Cannot Rename Temporary File: Permission Denied

This page answers questions like these:

• What is causing "sed: cannot rename ...: Permission denied"?
  
• Why does sed die with an error about not being able to rename a file?
  
• Why does running multiple seds cause one to terminate with an error about not being able to rename a file?
  

sed: cannot rename /tmp/sedXXXXXX: Permission denied:

• This occurs most often when there are multiple processes running sed -i on files located in the same directory.
• The file that sed is complaining about can be in the /tmp directory, the $TMP directory, or in the same directory as the file being edited.
• One way to prevent this error is to use the -i option with an argument. For example, the following will create a backup of FILE by appending “.bak” to the name: sed -i.bak -e COMMAND FILE