No syntax highlighting in vi under root

simple soln:
use vim instead of vi

complex soln:
/root/.bashrc: alias "vi"="/usr/bin/vim"

reason:
in rhel 5, root user by default uses vim-minimal that does not support syntax color

a.kao » Blog Archive » RHEL/CentOS 5 Vim Syntax Color
redhat.com | Red Hat Support: How can I enable syntax highlighting in vi?