What would a Linux system administrator type to remove the name of account and its home directory?

I just created a new user & its home folder & need to delete it now & also I cant find my old user's Downloads,Documents,Pictures,etc folder in /home/olduser & also .Xauthority file. Dont know how it deleted. I executed startx command by pressing Alt+Ctrl+F3when new user wasnt able to log in.

I deleted user from Users & Groups but its home folder didnt get deleted. How can I fix this?

• How can I delete new user's home folder safely?

• How can restore my old documents,downloads,folder?

• If not then how can I create brand new /home folder & link with OS?

asked May 2, 2014 at 7:09

5

to list all users :

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

To remove user :

sudo userdel username

To remove home directory :

sudo rm -r /home/username

To add a home directory to an existing user :

create a home directory

chown this directory for the user

sudo usermod -d /home/directory user

answered May 2, 2014 at 7:14

nuxnux

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4

You can use the more advanced deluser command:

sudo deluser --remove-home user

You can also try the the --remove-all-files option. From man deluser:

By default, deluser will remove the user without removing the home directory, the mail spool or any other files on the system owned by the user. Removing the home directory and mail spool can be achieved using the --remove-home option. The --remove-all-files option removes all files on the system owned by the user. Note that if you activate both options --remove-home will have no effect because all files including the home directory and mail spool are already covered by the --remove-all-files option.

As can be expected, the second option may take a while to complete.

answered Dec 1, 2014 at 17:54

murumuru

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2

Best way is to use the OPTIONS provided by the userdel command.

sudo userdel -rfRZ

This will:

1. Force delete

2. Files in the user's home directory will be removed along with the home directory itself and the user's mail spool. Files located in other file systems will have to be searched for and deleted manually.

3. Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory.

4. Remove any SELinux user mapping for the user's login.

Hope this helps!

answered Oct 21, 2017 at 14:22

Rush W.Rush W.

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If you have already deleted the user through the normal userdel and the home directory still exist like i experienced in mine, you just need to run rm -rf /home/

answered Oct 18, 2019 at 10:11

2

sudo userdel -r olduser

deletes users homdir and mail spooler

answered Apr 21 at 0:39

Delete/Remove User Account and Files

# deluser --remove-home tecmint [On Debian and its derivatives] # userdel --remove tecmint [On RedHat/CentOS based systems]

But before this there are some other steps:

1. Lock User Accounts in Linux

# passwd --lock tecmint

1. Find and Kill All Running Processes of User

# pgrep -u tecmint # killall -9 -u tecmint

1. Backup User Data Before Deleting

tar jcvf /user-backups/tecmint-home-directory-backup.tar.bz2 /home/tecmint

source ref: link

answered Jul 31 at 1:18

BubbaBubba

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1. Go to settings and type users.
2. Under user click on change settings and type the root password.
3. You must have another administrator user.
4. Turn off the administrator option for the user you want to delete.
5. Click on Remove User at the bottom of the page

answered Nov 1, 2021 at 4:54

I LIKE THIS,one-line MASTER COMMAND on my system-administrator job.

sudo Killall -u && sudo deluser --remove-home && sudo rm -rm /home/

answered Aug 22 at 7:04

What would a Linux system administrator type to remove the remove account and its home directory?

userdel command in Linux system is used to delete a user account and related files.

How do I remove the home directory in Linux?

There are two Linux commands you can use to remove a directory from the terminal window or command line: The rm command removes complete directories, including subdirectories and files. The rmdir command removes empty directories.

Which command is used to delete a user with a home directory in Linux?

The userdel command removes the user account identified by the login parameter. The command removes a user's attributes without removing the user's home directory by default. The user name must already exist. If the -r flag is specified, the userdel command also removes the user's home directory.

Which Linux command is used to delete a referenced user account from the system?

The userdel command modifies the system account files, deleting all entries that refer to the user name LOGIN. The named user must exist.