xref: /freebsd/usr.sbin/adduser/rmuser.8 (revision f4c5766baa461767ccb595252b1614f1ecc6f1a7)
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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 yv
38.Op Fl f Ar file
39.Op Ar username ...
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Nm
43utility removes one or more users submitted on the command line
44or from a file.
45In removing a user from the system, this utility:
46.Bl -enum
47.It
48Removes the user's
49.Xr crontab 1
50entry (if any).
51.It
52Removes any
53.Xr at 1
54jobs belonging to the user.
55.It
56Sends a
57.Dv SIGKILL
58signal to all processes owned by the user.
59.It
60Removes the user from the system's local password file.
61.It
62Removes the user's home directory (if it is owned by the user),
63including handling of symbolic links in the path to the actual home
64directory.
65.It
66Removes the incoming mail and POP daemon mail files belonging to the
67user from
68.Pa /var/mail .
69.It
70Removes all files owned by the user from
71.Pa /tmp , /var/tmp ,
72and
73.Pa /var/tmp/vi.recover .
74.It
75Removes 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,
78the group is removed; this complements
79.Xr adduser 8 Ns 's
80per-user unique groups.)
81.El
82.Pp
83The
84.Nm
85utility refuses to remove users whose UID is 0 (typically root), since
86certain actions (namely, killing all the user's processes, and perhaps
87removing the user's home directory) would cause damage to a running system.
88If it is necessary to remove a user whose UID is 0, see
89.Xr vipw 8
90for information on directly editing the password file.
91.Pp
92If
93.Nm
94was not invoked with the
95.Fl y
96option, it will
97show the selected user's password file entry and ask for confirmation
98that the user be removed.
99It will then ask for confirmation to delete
100the user's home directory.
101If the answer is in the affirmative, the home
102directory and any files and subdirectories under it will be deleted only if
103they are owned by the user.
104See
105.Xr pw 8
106for more details.
107.Pp
108As
109.Nm
110operates, it informs the user regarding the current activity.
111If any
112errors occur, they are posted to standard error and, if it is possible for
113.Nm
114to continue, it will.
115.Pp
116The options are as follows:
117.Bl -tag -width ".Ar username"
118.It Fl f Ar file
119The
120.Nm
121utility will get a list of users to be removed from
122.Ar file ,
123which will contain one user per line.
124Anything following a hash mark
125.Pq Ql # ,
126including the hash mark itself, is considered a comment and will not
127be processed.
128If the file is owned by anyone other than a user with
129UID 0, or is writeable by anyone other than the owner,
130.Nm
131will refuse to continue.
132.It Fl y
133Implicitly answer
134.Dq Li yes
135to any and all prompts.
136Currently, this includes
137prompts on whether to remove the specified user and whether to remove
138the home directory.
139This option requires that either the
140.Fl f
141option be used, or one or more user names be given as command line
142arguments.
143.It Fl v
144Enable verbose mode.
145Normally,
146the output inlcudes one line per removed user;
147however,
148with this option
149.Nm
150will be much more chatty about the steps taken.
151.It Ar username
152Identifies one or more users to be removed; if not present,
153.Nm
154interactively asks for one or more users to be removed.
155.El
156.Sh FILES
157.Bl -tag -compact
158.It Pa /etc/master.passwd
159.It Pa /etc/passwd
160.It Pa /etc/group
161.It Pa /etc/spwd.db
162.It Pa /etc/pwd.db
163.El
164.Sh SEE ALSO
165.Xr at 1 ,
166.Xr chpass 1 ,
167.Xr crontab 1 ,
168.Xr finger 1 ,
169.Xr passwd 1 ,
170.Xr group 5 ,
171.Xr passwd 5 ,
172.Xr adduser 8 ,
173.Xr pw 8 ,
174.Xr pwd_mkdb 8 ,
175.Xr vipw 8
176.Sh HISTORY
177The
178.Nm
179utility appeared in
180.Fx 2.2 .
181.Sh BUGS
182The
183.Nm
184utility does not comprehensively search the file system for all files
185owned by the removed user and remove them; to do so on a system
186of any size is prohibitively slow and I/O intensive.
187It is also unable to remove symbolic links that were created by the
188user in
189.Pa /tmp
190or
191.Pa /var/tmp ,
192as symbolic links on
193.Bx 4.4
194file systems do not contain information
195as to who created them.
196Also, there may be other files created in
197.Pa /var/mail
198other than
199.Pa /var/mail/ Ns Ar username
200and
201.Pa /var/mail/.pop. Ns Ar username
202that are not owned by the removed user but should be removed.
203.Pp
204The
205.Nm
206utility has no knowledge of YP/NIS, and it operates only on the
207local password file.
208