DELUSER(8) | System Manager's Manual | DELUSER(8) |
deluser, delgroup - remove a user or group from the system
deluser [options] [--force] [--remove-home] [--remove-all-files] [--backup] [--backup-to DIR] user
deluser --group [options] group
delgroup [options] [--only-if-empty] group
deluser [options] user group
[--quiet] [--system] [--help] [--version] [--conf FILE]
deluser and delgroup remove users and groups from the system according to command line options and configuration information in /etc/deluser.conf and /etc/adduser.conf. They are friendlier front ends to the userdel and groupdel programs, removing the home directory as option or even all files on the system owned by the user to be removed, running a custom script, and other features. deluser and delgroup can be run in one of three modes:
If called with one non-option argument and without the --group option, deluser will remove a normal user.
By default, deluser will remove the user without removing the home directory, the mail spool or any other files on the system owned by the user. Removing the home directory and mail spool can be achieved using the --remove-home option.
The --remove-all-files option removes all files on the system owned by the user. Note that if you activate both options --remove-home will have no effect because all files including the home directory and mail spool are already covered by the --remove-all-files option.
If you want to backup all files before deleting them you can activate the --backup option which will create a file username.tar(.gz|.bz2) in the directory specified by the --backup-to option (defaulting to the current working directory). Both the remove and backup options can also be activated for default in the configuration file /etc/deluser.conf. See deluser.conf(5) for details.
If you want to remove the root account (uid 0), then use the --force parameter; this may prevent to remove the root user by accident.
If the file /usr/local/sbin/deluser.local exists, it will
be executed after the user account has been removed in order to do any local
cleanup. The arguments passed to deluser.local are:
username uid gid home-directory
If deluser is called with the --group option, or delgroup is called, a group will be removed.
Warning: The primary group of an existing user cannot be removed.
If the option --only-if-empty is given, the group won't be removed if it has any members left.
If called with two non-option arguments, deluser will remove a user from a specific group.
/etc/deluser.conf Default configuration file for deluser and delgroup
Copyright (C) 2000 Roland Bauerschmidt. Modifications (C) 2004
Marc Haber and Joerg Hoh. This manpage and the deluser program are based on
adduser which is:
Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999 Guy Maor.
Copyright (C) 1995 Ted Hajek, with a great deal borrowed from the original
Debian adduser
Copyright (C) 1994 Ian Murdock. deluser is free software; see the GNU
General Public Licence version 2 or later for copying conditions. There is
no warranty.
Version 3.118 | Debian GNU/Linux |