xref: /dragonfly/usr.sbin/adduser/rmuser.8 (revision 6e278935)
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27.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.sbin/adduser/rmuser.8,v 1.25 2006/12/05 23:20:14 ceri Exp $
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.It
82Removes all message queues, shared memory segments and
83semaphores owned by the user.
84.El
85.Pp
86The
87.Nm
88utility refuses to remove users whose UID is 0 (typically root), since
89certain actions (namely, killing all the user's processes, and perhaps
90removing the user's home directory) would cause damage to a running system.
91If it is necessary to remove a user whose UID is 0, see
92.Xr vipw 8
93for information on directly editing the password file.
94.Pp
95If
96.Nm
97was not invoked with the
98.Fl y
99option, it will
100show the selected user's password file entry and ask for confirmation
101that the user be removed.
102It will then ask for confirmation to delete
103the user's home directory.
104If the answer is in the affirmative, the home
105directory and any files and subdirectories under it will be deleted only if
106they are owned by the user.
107See
108.Xr pw 8
109for more details.
110.Pp
111As
112.Nm
113operates, it informs the user regarding the current activity.
114If any
115errors occur, they are posted to standard error and, if it is possible for
116.Nm
117to continue, it will.
118.Pp
119The options are as follows:
120.Bl -tag -width ".Ar username"
121.It Fl f Ar file
122The
123.Nm
124utility will get a list of users to be removed from
125.Ar file ,
126which will contain one user per line.
127Anything following a hash mark
128.Pq Ql # ,
129including the hash mark itself, is considered a comment and will not
130be processed.
131If the file is owned by anyone other than a user with
132UID 0, or is writable by anyone other than the owner,
133.Nm
134will refuse to continue.
135.It Fl y
136Implicitly answer
137.Dq Li yes
138to any and all prompts.
139Currently, this includes
140prompts on whether to remove the specified user and whether to remove
141the home directory.
142This option requires that either the
143.Fl f
144option be used, or one or more user names be given as command line
145arguments.
146.It Fl v
147Enable verbose mode.
148Normally,
149the output includes one line per removed user;
150however,
151with this option
152.Nm
153will be much more chatty about the steps taken.
154.It Ar username
155Identifies one or more users to be removed; if not present,
156.Nm
157interactively asks for one or more users to be removed.
158.El
159.Sh FILES
160.Bl -tag -compact
161.It Pa /etc/master.passwd
162.It Pa /etc/passwd
163.It Pa /etc/group
164.It Pa /etc/spwd.db
165.It Pa /etc/pwd.db
166.El
167.Sh SEE ALSO
168.Xr at 1 ,
169.Xr chpass 1 ,
170.Xr crontab 1 ,
171.Xr finger 1 ,
172.Xr passwd 1 ,
173.Xr group 5 ,
174.Xr passwd 5 ,
175.Xr adduser 8 ,
176.Xr pw 8 ,
177.Xr pwd_mkdb 8 ,
178.Xr vipw 8
179.Sh HISTORY
180The
181.Nm
182utility appeared in
183.Fx 2.2 .
184.Sh BUGS
185The
186.Nm
187utility does not comprehensively search the file system for all files
188owned by the removed user and remove them; to do so on a system
189of any size is prohibitively slow and I/O intensive.
190It is also unable to remove symbolic links that were created by the
191user in
192.Pa /tmp
193or
194.Pa /var/tmp ,
195as symbolic links on
196.Bx 4.4
197file systems do not contain information
198as to who created them.
199Also, there may be other files created in
200.Pa /var/mail
201other than
202.Pa /var/mail/ Ns Ar username
203and
204.Pa /var/mail/.pop. Ns Ar username
205that are not owned by the removed user but should be removed.
206.Pp
207The
208.Nm
209utility has no knowledge of YP/NIS, and it operates only on the
210local password file.
211