When i tried to remove a user as well its home directory using this command "userdel -r username" but still its exists on home directory why?

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Because of the fact that you've already deleted the user before, without deleting his home directory, now there's no association between that user and that home directory, because the user simply doesn't exist. Therefore, the home directory has become a normal folder. If you don't associate it with another user, for instance by creating a new user and pointing to that home directory (useradd user -d /home/student), then your only choice is to simply delete that directory with rm -rf /home/student.

On the other hand, if you haven't deleted any users and you think that the user associated with /home/student might still exist in your system, you can check /etc/passwd:

If no output is displayed, then it means that no user is associated with that home directory.

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I would also suggest looking at the users home directory (ls -ld /home/name), just in case the directory has been given to a different user. If only the UID shows in the ownership, then there is no user id association.

This is because just looking at the /etc/passwd file may not be sufficient - the user may be in LDAP/NIS or other naming system - which would still be a valid user, just not listed in the /etc/passwd file.

If this is a local user and you want to delete user along with his / her home directory then you should user the command:If you don't like to -r switch then you can create an alias for userdel to be run as userdel -r. Remember once you created the alias it will userdel will work as userdel -r so if sometime you don't want to delete the user's home directory and just the user, either you remove the alias or move home directory somewhere else before running that command.

Since it is showing uid instead of the username I would say the directory went orphaned (not sure if it is the right term) and system allotted UID of the user which use to own then directory.

I doubt that it was an LDAP user but still to confirm you can run:

I got a new problem,when i logged in as a root it should be # sign but its gonna showing me regular user sign. You guys have any idea whats wrong with my system?

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Once you do su - root or su - then type the output of the following commands:

1. 2. 3. Edit: Also paste the output of:

Code:

echo $SHELL

Ok,Guys i got my problem solution when i tried to remove the user from home directory its said "userdel: user 'username' does not exist
" when i used useradd command its said
"useradd: warning: the home directory already exists.
Not copying any file from skel directory into it.
Creating mailbox file: File exists" Finally i used this command "sudo rm -rf /home/username" and its deleted.

We're all happy you haven't read any of our posts. You're welcome.

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