adduser/rmuser.8

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   2 .\"     Guy Helmer, Ames, Iowa 50014.  All rights reserved.
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  27 .\" $FreeBSD$
  28 .\"
  29 .Dd May 10, 2002
  30 .Dt RMUSER 8
  31 .Os
  32 .Sh NAME
  33 .Nm rmuser
  34 .Nd remove users from the system
  35 .Sh SYNOPSIS
  36 .Nm
  37 .Op Fl y
  38 .Op Fl f Ar file
  39 .Op Ar username ...
  40 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  41 The
  42 .Nm
  43 utility removes one or more users submitted on the command line
  44 or from a file.
  45 In removing a user from the system, this utility:
  46 .Bl -enum
  47 .It
  48 Removes the user's
  49 .Xr crontab 1
  50 entry (if any).
  51 .It
  52 Removes any
  53 .Xr at 1
  54 jobs belonging to the user.
  55 .It
  56 Sends a
  57 .Dv SIGKILL
  58 signal to all processes owned by the user.
  59 .It
  60 Removes the user from the system's local password file.
  61 .It
  62 Removes the user's home directory (if it is owned by the user),
  63 including handling of symbolic links in the path to the actual home
  64 directory.
  65 .It
  66 Removes the incoming mail and POP daemon mail files belonging to the
  67 user from
  68 .Pa /var/mail .
  69 .It
  70 Removes all files owned by the user from
  71 .Pa /tmp , /var/tmp ,
  72 and
  73 .Pa /var/tmp/vi.recover .
  74 .It
  75 Removes the username from all groups to which it belongs in
  76 .Pa /etc/group .
  77 (If a group becomes empty and the group name is the same as the username,
  78 the group is removed; this complements
  79 .Xr adduser 8 Ns 's
  80 per-user unique groups.)
  81 .El
  82 .Pp
  83 The
  84 .Nm
  85 utility refuses to remove users whose UID is 0 (typically root), since
  86 certain actions (namely, killing all the user's processes, and perhaps
  87 removing the user's home directory) would cause damage to a running system.
  88 If it is necessary to remove a user whose UID is 0, see
  89 .Xr vipw 8
  90 for information on directly editing the password file.
  91 .Pp
  92 If
  93 .Nm
  94 was not invoked with the
  95 .Fl y
  96 option, it will
  97 show the selected user's password file entry and ask for confirmation
  98 that the user be removed.
  99 It will then ask for confirmation to delete
 100 the user's home directory.
 101 If the answer is in the affirmative, the home
 102 directory and any files and subdirectories under it will be deleted only if
 103 they are owned by the user.
 104 See
 105 .Xr pw 8
 106 for more details.
 107 .Pp
 108 As
 109 .Nm
 110 operates, it informs the user regarding the current activity.
 111 If any
 112 errors occur, they are posted to standard error and, if it is possible for
 113 .Nm
 114 to continue, it will.
 115 .Pp
 116 The options are as follows:
 117 .Bl -tag -width ".Ar username"
 118 .It Fl f Ar file
 119 The
 120 .Nm
 121 utility will get a list of users to be removed from
 122 .Ar file ,
 123 which will contain one user per line.
 124 Anything following a hash mark
 125 .Pq Ql # ,
 126 including the hash mark itself, is considered a comment and will not
 127 be processed.
 128 If the file is owned by anyone other than a user with
 129 UID 0, or is writeable by anyone other than the owner,
 130 .Nm
 131 will refuse to continue.
 132 .It Fl y
 133 Implicitly answer
 134 .Dq Li yes
 135 to any and all prompts.
 136 Currently, this includes
 137 prompts on whether to remove the specified user and whether to remove
 138 the home directory.
 139 This option requires that either the
 140 .Fl f
 141 option be used, or one or more user names be given as commmand line
 142 arguments.
 143 .It Ar username
 144 Identifies one or more users to be removed; if not present,
 145 .Nm
 146 interactively asks for one or more users to be removed.
 147 .El
 148 .Sh FILES
 149 .Bl -tag -compact
 150 .It Pa /etc/master.passwd
 151 .It Pa /etc/passwd
 152 .It Pa /etc/group
 153 .It Pa /etc/spwd.db
 154 .It Pa /etc/pwd.db
 155 .El
 156 .Sh SEE ALSO
 157 .Xr at 1 ,
 158 .Xr chpass 1 ,
 159 .Xr crontab 1 ,
 160 .Xr finger 1 ,
 161 .Xr passwd 1 ,
 162 .Xr group 5 ,
 163 .Xr passwd 5 ,
 164 .Xr adduser 8 ,
 165 .Xr pw 8 ,
 166 .Xr pwd_mkdb 8 ,
 167 .Xr vipw 8
 168 .Sh HISTORY
 169 The
 170 .Nm
 171 utility appeared in
 172 .Fx 2.2 .
 173 .Sh BUGS
 174 The
 175 .Nm
 176 utility does not comprehensively search the filesystem for all files
 177 owned by the removed user and remove them; to do so on a system
 178 of any size is prohibitively slow and I/O intensive.
 179 It is also unable to remove symbolic links that were created by the
 180 user in
 181 .Pa /tmp
 182 or
 183 .Pa /var/tmp ,
 184 as symbolic links on
 185 .Bx 4.4
 186 filesystems do not contain information
 187 as to who created them.
 188 Also, there may be other files created in
 189 .Pa /var/mail
 190 other than
 191 .Pa /var/mail/ Ns Ar username
 192 and
 193 .Pa /var/mail/.pop. Ns Ar username
 194 that are not owned by the removed user but should be removed.
 195 .Pp
 196 The
 197 .Nm
 198 utility has no knowledge of YP/NIS, and it operates only on the
 199 local password file.