This is my first post! Novice Linux user. I'm doing Linux From Scratch 11.0 stable (sysVinit) and am at the very end of Chapter 8 Installing Basic System Software, which is done in the chroot enviroment. Page[8.78. Cleaning Up]. Debian host (MX Linux) on another Partition(not a vm).

My Question: How do I manually remove the temporary 'tester' user account, (created at the beginning of CH7(there is two duplicate)), and what All needs to be removed or preserved? Decided to take my time before doing anything as not to break anything.

I ran this command per the book to 'remove temporary tester account' and received this output:

Command ran:

userdel -r tester

Output:

Multiple entries named 'tester' in /etc/passwd. Please fix this with pwck or grpck.
userdel: cannot remove entry 'tester' from /etc/passwd

And from 'grep tester /etc/passwd' is see there is two of these users with execute permissions:

tester:x:101:101::/home/tester:/bin/bash
tester:x:101:101::/home/tester:/bin/bash

-The only thing I have found looking one more time before posting this is someone had a problem not being able to create the tester temp user in LFS 10, they said it was because they had mounted /dev or /dev/pts when it was already mounted, that's not the same issue I'm having but it's definitely possible I mounted it after it was mounted because I tend to triple check variables are set or things are mounted and didn't know this would cause an issue. This is likely why there is two 'tester' temporary users? (Maybe if I exit un-mount, reboot, re-enter ,remount and try 'userdel' again?)Or use pwck , grpck like the message says? If so how would I use them? Here is the output of mount while in chroot envir:

(lfs chroot) root:/# mount
/dev/sda4 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=3996404k,nr_inodes=999101,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=3996404k,nr_inodes=999101,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=3996404k,nr_inodes=999101,mode=755)
udev on /dev/pts type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=3996404k,nr_inodes=999101,mode=755)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,relatime)





"Please let me know if there's anything I can do to improve my post, and if there's anything I should do differently when posting. Thank you, for your time and help."

from the chroot env i would vi into /etc/passwd and delete one of the tester lines then try userdel again

if you exit the chroot but do not reboot, it is important to umount the virtual fs (dev/pts, dev, proc, run, sys), or when you re-enter chroot and remount them it can cause problems

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Thank you wiigelec. Okay I will try that and try the userdel again. Very good to know about unmounting, I appreciate it.

Okay I edited the /etc/passwd file and removed one of the tester user lines, it gave me the same message again. Is having that tester user going to cause problems later if I don't resolve it now?

did you try running pwck?

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Edit: Yes It output this message, I selected no cause I didn't know what that entry is:

user 'messagebus': directory '/run/dbus' does not exist
invalid password file entry
delete line ''? no

I also tried 'grpck -r'read only and it looked at tester:

duplicate group entry
delete line 'tester:x:101:'? No

it would seem that 'yes' would be the appropriate response for the tester entry

1 members found this post helpful.

It worked, this is great. Thank you so much I appreciate you taking the time to help.


ran 'grpck' with no options after running it as read only 'grpck -r' , selected yes when prompted and tester is removed.