How to Delete a User Account in Linux
In Linux, we can have multiple user accounts. Sometimes, we may need to remove some users to deny their access to the system. In such cases, we have to delete the user account. We can use userdelcommand line utilities to delete user accounts in Linux.
Syntax: userdelCommand
userdel [options] user
It userremoves the user with username from the system. There are various options associated optionswith the command to customize the removal process. To delete a user account, we must make sure that we are logged in as a superuser.userdel
Example: userdelCommand
userdel DelftStack
It will delete the account with username DelftStack. The command also reads /etc/login.defsthe contents of the file. If a group with username DelftStackalso exists, and user DelftStackexists only DelftStackin the group , then the group will also be deleted if /etc/login.defsin the file USERGROUPS_ENABis set to yes.DelftStack
This command will also clear all user information present in the /etc/passwdand files./etc/shadow
However, even if userdelthe account is deleted using the command, some directories, such as mail spooland user home pages, are not deleted.
To remove these directories, we use the or option userdelwith the command .-r--remove
userdel -r DelftStack
It removes the mail spooler and user home directories. However, files in other file systems must be removed manually.
We cannot delete the user account if the user is logged in or any process associated with that user is running in the system. To log out the user from the system and stop all the processes associated with the user, we use the following command.
sudo killall -u DelftStack
It will log the user off the system DelftStackand stop all DelftStackprocesses associated with the user.
Now, we can use this command to delete the user account.
userdel DelftStack
Alternatively, to delete the logged in user account or the running processes associated with it, we can use the or option userdelwith the command .-f--force
userdel -f DelftStack
It forcefully removes the account from the system DelftStackeven if the user is logged in or the user has any running processes associated with it.
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