How do I kill a user?

computergeek84 · 11-11-2003, 04:55 PM

This is exactly the same problem I had. I needed to kill users but their PID's had long been killed. The solution: Delete /var/run/utmp and make a new, empty one:

# rm -f /var/run/utmp
# touch /var/run/utmp

That should fix your problem!

masand · 04-11-2004, 09:11 AM

deleting the file utmp

will remove the log maintained by the system of the users.

if u want to remove one user then ,deleting and then creatinga new file will remove log of all users

i think to emove log of certaion users firts of all kill allthe processes of the users then edit the utmp file to mark all the instances of the users as dead processes

look into
man getutent

there thay have given the procedure