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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CONFIGURATION | FILES | EXIT VALUES | CAVEATS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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USERDEL(8) System Management Commands USERDEL(8)
userdel - delete a user account and related files
userdel [options] LOGIN
The userdel command modifies the system account files, deleting
all entries that refer to the user name LOGIN. The named user must
exist.
The options which apply to the userdel command are:
-f, --force
This option forces the removal of the user account and any
other requested actions, skipping any safety checks.
Note: This option is dangerous and may leave your system in an
inconsistent state.
-h, --help
Display help message and exit.
-r, --remove
Files in the user's home directory will be removed along with
the home directory itself and the user's mail spool. Files
located in other file systems will have to be searched for and
deleted manually.
The mail spool is defined by the MAIL_DIR variable in the
login.defs file.
-R, --root CHROOT_DIR
Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the
configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory. Only
absolute paths are supported.
-P, --prefix PREFIX_DIR
Apply changes in the PREFIX_DIR directory and use the
configuration files from the PREFIX_DIR directory. This option
does not chroot and is intended for preparing a
cross-compilation target. Some limitations: NIS and LDAP
users/groups are not verified. PAM authentication is using the
host files. No SELINUX support.
-Z, --selinux-user
Remove any SELinux user mapping for the user's login.
The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change
the behavior of this tool:
MAIL_DIR (string)
The mail spool directory. This is needed to manipulate the
mailbox when its corresponding user account is modified or
deleted. If not specified, a compile-time default is used. The
parameter CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL in /etc/default/useradd determines
whether the mail spool should be created.
MAIL_FILE (string)
Defines the location of the users mail spool files relatively
to their home directory.
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)
Maximum members per group entry. When the maximum is reached,
a new group entry (line) is started in /etc/group (with the
same name, same password, and same GID).
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)
If defined, this command is run when removing a user. It
should remove any at/cron/print jobs etc. owned by the user to
be removed (passed as the first argument).
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
USERGROUPS_ENAB (boolean)
If set to yes, userdel will remove the user's group if it
contains no more members, and useradd will create by default a
group with the name of the user.
/etc/group
Group account information.
/etc/login.defs
Shadow password suite configuration.
/etc/passwd
User account information.
/etc/shadow
Secure user account information.
/etc/shadow-maint/userdel-pre.d/*,
/etc/shadow-maint/userdel-post.d/*
Run-part files to execute during user deletion. The
environment variable ACTION will be populated with userdel and
SUBJECT with the username. userdel-pre.d will be executed
prior to any user deletion. userdel-post.d will execute after
user deletion. If a script exits non-zero then execution will
terminate.
/etc/subgid
Per user subordinate group IDs.
/etc/subuid
Per user subordinate user IDs.
The userdel command exits with the following values:
0
success
1
can't update password file
2
invalid command syntax
6
specified user doesn't exist
8
user currently logged in
10
can't update group file
12
can't remove home directory
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.
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).
This page is part of the shadow-utils (utilities for managing
accounts and shadow password files) project. Information about
the project can be found at
⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, send it to
pkg-shadow-devel@alioth-lists.debian.net. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-10.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
shadow-utils 4.18.0 08/11/2025 USERDEL(8)
Pages that refer to this page: getsubids(1), newgidmap(1), newuidmap(1), subgid(5), subuid(5), groupadd(8), groupdel(8), groupmems(8), groupmod(8), useradd(8), usermod(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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