Deleting User in Red Hat Linux
 

Dear all,

I am sorry and i am not sure if this is the right category to post this qns.

Basically i have added a few users using the command:

e.g useradd alice

I accidentely deleted the user using:

e.g userdel alice and not using userdel -r alice.

when i use ls , i realise that the users are visible but the systems says users do not exist.

May i know how to get rid of the users?

I think user is now locked, unable to log in, but the files are still there, you need to remove home dir and other files also (owned by alice)

delete home dir
 

Hi there,

r u saying that i should use rmdir /home and remove all of its content?

no, rmdir /home/alice would be better. do not remove /home! be care about removing anything, it can be dangerous!

Moderator Response
 

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <Red Hat> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

delete home dir
 

Hi there,

When i do rmdir /home/alice

it says that directory no empty.

How do i delete the username that is visible but apparently not existing?

try:

delete home dir
 

hi there,

The rm -r /home/alice worked.. but the problem is that i have to type y for all the files that are deleted.

Is it possible to force delete all the users without selecting y or yes all the time?

Sure, try:

that worked perfectly fine. a huge thank you :P

by the way when i add the same user again it says
creating mailbox file:File exist

this comment normally wont be prompted when a new user is added.

any reason why and how to avoid this?

thanks in advance

Try this:
In the future when you delete a user, make sure to include the -r option with the userdel command as this will remove the home directory and user's mail spool (that is, if you want that to happen).

thank you soo much for the prompt reply.. i am studying for the RHCE exam ... :)

No prob, please mark the thread as solved and feel free to give me rep points :)

by the way how do i delete all the spool mails for all the users at once?

is there a command?

thank you

I've never had to do that before, so I'm not really sure if there's a command to do that. Depending on the number of users in your system, I'd write a script to purge their mail spools one by one.

Just be sure to be careful when you do this (if you do this in a real world situation) because without proper backups it's 100% assured that someone will need one of the e-mails you delete somewhere down the line.

ok thank you for the tip and advice and i will take that into account. :P

thank you for the advice and tips :P