*BSD News Article 74207


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.sdsmt.edu!mars.dsu.edu!ivory.dsu.edu!not-for-mail
From: ghelmer@ivory.dsu.edu (Guy Helmer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Delete or modify user, how?
Date: 19 Jul 1996 10:01:05 -0500
Organization: Dakota State University
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <4so7vh$815@ivory.dsu.edu>
References: <31ED60CE.4F28@best.com> <4sl8v3$53o@uriah.heep.sax.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ghelmer@ivory.dsu.edu

j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) writes:

>Chris Millikin <chrism@best.com> wrote:

>> 	I'm puzzled.  Adduser makes adding users simple, but how do I
>> permenently delete, or edit a user.  When I say edit, I mean thing
>> like real name, etc.

>Removing all traces of a user is more complex, and it's a matter of
>local policy whether you even want this (or whether you, for example,
>want his login ID and UID being reserved for the forseeable future).

>There's now a utility under /usr/share/examples/ in the source tree
>demonstrating what you need to think of.  Courtesy Guy Helmer, if my
>memory serves well.

Hmm - I can't seem to find it on either of the two 2.1.5 systems I just
brought up...

Anyway, a beta of a much revised version (installs easier, better error
checking, handles symlinks to the user's home directory, and removes the
user's crontab and any at jobs) is available at

ftp://ftp.dsu.edu/pub/FreeBSD/ghelmer/removeuser-2-beta.tar.gz

Please use it with care (make good backups before using it!) and report
any problems. It has been moderately tested on one of my systems and I
have not heard of any problems, but of course YMMV.  The home directory
symlink handling code is the latest addition and I think I have tested
every possible case (including dangling symlinks), but I would appreciate
feedback.

Guy Helmer
ghelmer@alpha.dsu.edu (but not for much longer!)
-- 
Guy Helmer, Dakota State University Computing Services - ghelmer@alpha.dsu.edu