<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Removing a user</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.63 "><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="The Linux System Administrator's Guide" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Managing user accounts" HREF="c2318.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Changing user properties" HREF="x2424.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Disabling a user temporarily" HREF="x2466.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >The Linux System Administrator's Guide: Version 0.7</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x2424.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 11. Managing user accounts</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x2466.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="AEN2452" >11.4. Removing a user</A ></H1 ><P > To remove a user, you first remove all his files, mailboxes, mail aliases, print jobs, <B CLASS="COMMAND" >cron</B > and <B CLASS="COMMAND" >at</B > jobs, and all other references to the user. Then you remove the relevant lines from <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/passwd</TT > and <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/group</TT > (remember to remove the username from all groups it's been added to). It may be a good idea to first disable the account (see below), before you start removing stuff, to prevent the user from using the account while it is being removed. </P ><P > Remember that users may have files outside their home directory. The <B CLASS="COMMAND" >find</B > command can find them: <TABLE BORDER="1" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><FONT COLOR="#000000" ><PRE CLASS="SCREEN" >find / -user username</PRE ></FONT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE > However, note that the above command will take a <EM >long</EM > time, if you have large disks. If you mount network disks, you need to be careful so that you won't trash the network or the server. </P ><P > Some Linux distributions come with special commands to do this; look for <B CLASS="COMMAND" >deluser</B > or <B CLASS="COMMAND" >userdel</B >. However, it is easy to do it by hand as well, and the commands might not do everything. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x2424.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x2466.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Changing user properties</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="c2318.html" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Disabling a user temporarily</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >