man > deluser(8)

DELUSER(8) System Manager's Manual DELUSER(8)

📛 NAME

deluser, delgroup - remove a user or group from the system

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
Remove a normal user (keep home)	deluser user	Removes user account, leaves home directory and mail spool intact.
Remove user and home directory	deluser --remove-home user	Removes user, home directory, and mail spool.
Remove user and all owned files	deluser --remove-all-files user	Removes user and all files owned by them on the system.
Remove a group	delgroup group	Removes the specified group (if empty).
Remove user from a specific group	deluser user group	Removes user from the given group.
Remove only if group empty	delgroup --only-if-empty group	Prevents removal if group still has members.

📋 SYNOPSIS

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

COMMON OPTIONS

[--quiet] [--system] [--help] [--version] [--conf FILE]

📖 DESCRIPTION

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:

👤 Remove a normal user

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

👥 Remove a group

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.

🔄 Remove a user from a specific group

If called with two non-option arguments, deluser will remove a user from a specific group.

🔧 OPTIONS

📄 --conf FILE

Use FILE instead of the default files /etc/deluser.conf and /etc/adduser.conf

👥 --group

Remove a group. This is the default action if the program is invoked as delgroup.

❓ --help

Display brief instructions.

🔇 --quiet

Suppress progress messages.

⚙️ --system

Only delete if user/group is a system user/group. This avoids accidentally deleting non-system users/groups. Additionally, if the user does not exist, no error value is returned. This option is mainly for use in Debian package maintainer scripts.

🧹 --only-if-empty

Only remove if no members are left.

💾 --backup

Backup all files contained in the userhome and the mailspool-file to a file named /$user.tar.bz2 or /$user.tar.gz.

📂 --backup-to

Place the backup files not in / but in the directory specified by this parameter. This implicitly sets --backup also.

🏠 --remove-home

Remove the home directory of the user and its mailspool. If --backup is specified, the files are deleted after having performed the backup.

🗑️ --remove-all-files

Remove all files from the system owned by this user. Note: --remove-home does not have an effect any more. If --backup is specified, the files are deleted after having performed the backup.

ℹ️ --version

Display version and copyright information.

🚪 Exit Codes

• 0 — The action was successfully executed.
• 1 — The user to delete was not a system account. No action was performed.
• 2 — There is no such user. No action was performed.
• 3 — There is no such group. No action was performed.
• 4 — Internal error. No action was performed.
• 5 — The group to delete is not empty. No action was performed.
• 6 — The user does not belong to the specified group. No action was performed.
• 7 — You cannot remove a user from its primary group. No action was performed.
• 8 — The required perl-package 'perl modules' is not installed. This package is required to perform the requested actions. No action was performed.
• 9 — For removing the root account the parameter "--force" is required. No action was performed.

📁 FILES

• /etc/deluser.conf — Default configuration file for deluser and delgroup
• /usr/local/sbin/deluser.local — Optional custom add-ons.

🔗 SEE ALSO

adduser(8), deluser.conf(5), groupdel(8), userdel(8)

© COPYRIGHT

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.

Debian GNU/Linux   Version 3.118ubuntu5   DELUSER(8)