Raspberry Pi manual installation user question

Hi all-

Noob here- I did a really noob thing in that I erased my HA SD card (while attempting to back it up using dd) and now I am rebuilding everything. The build that I erased was the AIO installer, and I suspect that a lot of the problems I am having relate to the manual installation. I have a lot of questions, but I’ll just start with the following simple one: Do I need to be logged in as the homeassistant user in order to edit the configuration.yaml file? Also what is this password prompt I am running in to?

(homeassistant_venv) pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo su -s /bin/bash homeassistant
homeassistant@raspberrypi:/home/pi $ cd /srv/homeassistant
homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv/homeassistant $ python3 -m venv homeassistant_venv
homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv/homeassistant $ source     /srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/bin/activate
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv/homeassistant $ ls
homeassistant_venv
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv/homeassistant $ cd ..
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv $ cd ..
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/ $ ls
bin   dev  home  lost+found  mnt  proc  run   srv  tmp  var
boot  etc  lib   media       opt  root  sbin  sys  usr
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/ $ 
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/ $ cd
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:~ $ ls
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:~ $ cd
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:~ $ cd ..
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/home $ ls
homeassistant  pi
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/home $ cd homeassistant
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:~ $ cd .homeassistant
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:~/.homeassistant $ ls
configuration.yaml  deps  home-assistant.log  home-assistant_v2.db
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:~/.homeassistant $ sudo nano configuration.yaml

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:
Respect the privacy of others.
Think before you type.
With great power comes great responsibility.

[sudo] password for homeassistant: 
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for homeassistant: 
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for homeassistant: 
Sorry, try again.
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts
(homeassistant_venv) homeassistant@raspberrypi:~/.homeassistant $ 

any pointers appreciated,

-rev

Try it from the regular prompt, not from within the Venv.

tried that first, does not seem to make a difference.

From the message, you appear to be logged in as the root user. I do believe that causes issues.

Ok- it was that, yes, @zarthan, @Corey_Johnson. I realize I had two configuration.yaml files- not sure why.