NAME
userdel - delete a user account and related files
SYNOPSIS
userdel [options] LOGIN
DESCRIPTION
userdel is a low level utility for removing users. On Debian, administrators should usually use deluser(8) instead.
The userdel command modifies the system account files, deleting all entries that refer to the user name LOGIN. The named user must exist.
OPTIONS
The options which apply to the userdel command are:
-f, --force
Note: This option is dangerous and may leave your system in an inconsistent state.
-h, --help
-r, --remove
The mail spool is defined by the MAIL_DIR variable in the login.defs file.
-R, --rootCHROOT_DIR
-P, --prefixPREFIX_DIR
-Z, --selinux-user
CONFIGURATION
The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change the behavior of this tool:
MAIL_DIR (string)
MAIL_FILE (string)
The MAIL_DIR and MAIL_FILE variables are used by useradd, usermod, and userdel to create, move, or delete the user's mail spool.
MAX_MEMBERS_PER_GROUP (number)
The default value is 0, meaning that there are no limits in the number of members in a group.
This feature (split group) permits to limit the length of lines in the group file. This is useful to make sure that lines for NIS groups are not larger than 1024 characters.
If you need to enforce such limit, you can use 25.
Note: split groups may not be supported by all tools (even in the Shadow toolsuite). You should not use this variable unless you really need it.
USERDEL_CMD (string)
The return code of the script is not taken into account.
Here is an example script, which removes the user's cron, at and print jobs:
#! /bin/sh
# Check for the required argument.
if [ $# != 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 username"
exit 1
fi
# Remove cron jobs.
crontab -r -u $1
# Remove at jobs.
# Note that it will remove any jobs owned by the same UID,
# even if it was shared by a different username.
AT_SPOOL_DIR=/var/spool/cron/atjobs
find $AT_SPOOL_DIR -name "[^.]*" -type f -user $1 -delete \;
# Remove print jobs.
lprm $1
# All done.
exit 0
\nUSERGROUPS_ENAB (boolean)
FILES
/etc/group
/etc/login.defs
/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/shadow-maint/userdel-pre.d/*, /etc/shadow-maint/userdel-post.d/*
/etc/subgid
/etc/subuid
EXIT VALUES
The userdel command exits with the following values:
0
1
2
6
8
10
12
CAVEATS
userdel will not allow you to remove an account if there are running processes which belong to this account. In that case, you may have to kill those processes or lock the user's password or account and remove the account later. The -f option can force the deletion of this account.
You should manually check all file systems to ensure that no files remain owned by this user.
You may not remove any NIS attributes on a NIS client. This must be performed on the NIS server.
If USERGROUPS_ENAB is defined to yes in /etc/login.defs, userdel will delete the group with the same name as the user. To avoid inconsistencies in the passwd and group databases, userdel will check that this group is not used as a primary group for another user, and will just warn without deleting the group otherwise. The -f option can force the deletion of this group.
SEE ALSO
chfn(1), chsh(1), passwd(1), login.defs(5), gpasswd(8), groupadd(8), groupdel(8), groupmod(8), subgid(5), subuid(5), useradd(8), usermod(8).