.\" Copyright: 1994 Ian A. Murdock <imurdock@debian.org>
.\"            1995 Ted Hajek <tedhajek@boombox.micro.umn.edu>
.\"            1997-1999 Guy Maor
.\"            2000-2003 Roland Bauerschmidt <rb@debian.org>
.\"            2004-2025 Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>
.\"            2006-2009 Jörg Hoh <joerg@joerghoh.de>
.\"            2011 Justin B Rye <jbr@edlug.org.uk>
.\"            2016 Helge Kreutzmann <debian@helgefjell.de>
.\"            2021-2022 Jason Franklin <jason@oneway.dev>
.\"
.\" This is free software; see the GNU General Public License version
.\" 2 or later for copying conditions.  There is NO warranty.
.TH DELUSER 8 "" "Debian GNU/Linux"
.SH NAME
deluser, delgroup \- remove a user or group from the system
.SH SYNOPSIS
.SY deluser
.OP \-\-backup
.OP \-\-backup\-suffix str
.OP \-\-backup\-to dir
.OP \-\-conf file
.OP \-\-debug
.OP \-\-remove\-all\-files
.OP \-\-remove\-home
.OP \-\-quiet
.OP \-\-verbose
.OP \-\-stdoutmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-stderrmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-logmsglevel prio
.B user
.YS

.SY deluser
.OP \-\-system
.OP \-\-backup
.OP \-\-backup\-suffix str
.OP \-\-backup\-to dir
.OP \-\-conf file
.OP \-\-debug
.OP \-\-remove\-all\-files
.OP \-\-remove\-home
.OP \-\-quiet
.OP \-\-verbose
.OP \-\-stdoutmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-stderrmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-logmsglevel prio
.B user
.YS

.SY deluser
.B \-\-group
.OP \-\-conf file
.OP \-\-debug
.OP \-\-only\-if\-empty
.OP \-\-quiet
.OP \-\-verbose
.OP \-\-stdoutmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-stderrmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-logmsglevel prio
.B group
.YS

.SY delgroup
.OP \-\-system
.OP \-\-conf file
.OP \-\-debug
.OP \-\-only\-if\-empty
.OP \-\-quiet
.OP \-\-verbose
.OP \-\-stdoutmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-stderrmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-logmsglevel prio
.B group
.YS

.SY deluser
.OP \-\-conf file
.OP \-\-debug
.OP \-\-quiet
.OP \-\-verbose
.OP \-\-stdoutmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-stderrmsglevel prio
.OP \-\-logmsglevel prio
.B user
.B group
.YS

.SY deluser
.B \-\-help
.YS
.SY deluser
.B \-\-version
.YS
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBdeluser\fP and \fBdelgroup\fP remove users and groups
from the system according to command line options
and configuration information in
\fI/etc/deluser.conf\fP and \fI/etc/adduser.conf\fP.
.PP
They are more Debian specific front ends to the
\fBuserdel\fP and \fBgroupdel\fP programs,
which are more distribution agnostic.
\fBdeluser\fP and \fBdelgroup\fP can remove the home directory as option
or even all files on the system owned by the user to be removed,
run a custom script,
and have other features.
.PP
For a full list and explanations of all options,
see the OPTIONS section.
.PP
\fBdeluser\fP and \fBdelgroup\fP can be run in one of three modes:

.SS "Remove a user"
If called with one non-option argument and
without the \fB\-\-group\fP option,
\fBdeluser\fP will remove a non-system user.
.PP
By default,
\fBdeluser\fP 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 \fB\-\-remove\-home\fP option.
.PP
The \fB\-\-remove\-all\-files\fP option
removes all files on the system owned by the user.
Note that if you activate both options
\fB\-\-remove\-home\fP will have no additional effect
because all files including
the home directory and mail spool
are already covered by the \fB\-\-remove\-all\-files\fP option.
.PP
If you want to backup all files before deleting them
you can activate the \fB\-\-backup\fP option
which will create a file \fIusername.tar(.gz|.bz2)\fP
in the directory specified by the \fB\-\-backup\-to\fP option.
.PP
By default,
the backup archive is compressed with \fBgzip\fP(1).
To change this,
the \fB\-\-backup\-suffix\fP option can be set
to any suffix supported by \fBtar \-\-auto\-compress\fP.
.PP
\fBdeluser\fP will refuse to remove the root account.
.PP
If the \fB\-\-system\fP option is given on the command line, the
delete operation is actually executed only if the user is a system user.
This avoids accidentally deleting non-system users.
Additionally,
if the user does not exist,
no error value is returned.
Debian package maintainer scripts
may use this flag
to remove system users or groups
while ignoring the case where the removal already occurred.

.SS "Remove a group"
If \fBdeluser\fP is called with the \fB\-\-group\fP option,
or \fBdelgroup\fP is called,
a group will be removed.
The primary group of an existing user cannot be removed.
If the option \fB\-\-only\-if\-empty\fP is given,
the group won't be removed if it has any members left.
.PP
The \fB\-\-system\fP option adds the same functionality as for users,
respectively.

.SS "Remove a user from a specific group"
If called with two non-option arguments,
\fBdeluser\fP will remove a user from a specific group.

.SH OPTIONS
Different modes of \fBdeluser\fP allow different options.
If no valid modes are listed for a option,
it is accepted in all modes.
.PP
Short versions for certain options may exist for historical reasons.
They are going to stay supported, but are removed from the documentation.
Users are advised to migrate to the long version of options.
.TP
.B \-\-backup
Backup all files contained in the userhome and the mailspool file
to a file named \fIusername.tar.bz2\fP or \fIusername.tar.gz\fP.
Valid modes: \fBdeluser\fP, \fBdeluser \-\-system\fP.
.TP
.BR "\-\-backup\-suffix "str
Select compression algorithm for a home directory backup.
Can be set to any suffix recognized by \fBtar \-\-auto\-compress\fP.
Defaults to \fI.gz\fP.
Valid modes: \fBdeluser\fP, \fBdeluser \-\-system\fP.
.TP
.BI "\-\-backup\-to "dir
Place the backup files not in the current directory but in \fIdir\fP.
This implicitly sets \fB\-\-backup\fP also.
Defaults to the current working directory.
Valid modes: \fBdeluser\fP, \fBdeluser \-\-system\fP.
.TP
.BI \-\-conf " file"
Use \fIfile\fP instead of the default files
\fI/etc/deluser.conf\fP and \fI/etc/adduser.conf\fP.
Multiple \-\-conf options may be given.
.TP
.B \-\-debug
Synonymous to
.BR \-\-stdoutmsglevel=debug .
Deprecated.
.TP
.B \-\-group
Remove a group.
This is the default action if the program is
invoked as \fIdelgroup\fP.
Valid mode: \fBdeluser\fP.
.TP
.B \-\-help
Display brief instructions.
.TP
.B \-\-only\-if\-empty
Only remove if no members are left.
Valid modes: \fBdeluser \-\-group\fP, \fBdelgroup\fP.
.TP
.B \-\-quiet
Synonymous to
.BR \-\-stdoutmsglevel=warn .
Deprecated.
.TP
.B \-\-remove\-all\-files
Remove all files from the system owned by this user.
Note: \-\-remove\-home does not have an effect any more.
If \fB\-\-backup\fP is specified,
the files are deleted after having performed the backup.
Valid modes: \fBdeluser\fP, \fBdeluser \-\-system\fP.
.TP
.B \-\-remove\-home
Remove the home directory of the user and its mailspool.
If \fB\-\-backup\fP is specified,
the files are deleted after having performed the backup.
Valid modes: \fBdeluser\fP, \fBdeluser \-\-system\fP.
.TP
.B \-\-system
Only delete if user/group is a system user/group.
If the user does not exist, no error value is returned.
Valid modes: \fBdeluser\fP, \fBdeluser \-\-system\fP.
.TP
.B \-\-verbose
Synonymous to
.BR \-\-stdoutmsglevel=info .
Deprecated.
.TP
.BI \-\-stdoutmsglevel " prio"
.TQ
.BI \-\-stderrmsglevel " prio"
.TQ
.BI \-\-logmsglevel " prio"
Minimum priority for messages logged to syslog/journal and the console,
respectively.
Values are
\fItrace\fP, \fIdebug\fP, \fIinfo\fP, \fIwarn\fP, \fIerr\fP, and \fIfatal\fP.
Messages with the priority set here or higher get printed to the
respective medium.
Messages printed to stderr are not repeated on stdout.
That allows the local admin to control \fBadduser\fP's chattiness
on the console and in the log independently, keeping probably confusing
information to itself while still leaving helpful information in the log.
.TP
.B \-\-version
Display version and copyright information.

.SH LOGGING

\fBdeluser\fR uses extensive and configurable logging to tailor its verbosity
to the needs and wishes of the system administrator.

This works similar to \fBadduser\fR.
See \fBadduser\fR(8) for all the details.

.SH EXIT VALUES

The exit values documented in adduser(8) also apply for \fBdeluser\fP.

.SH SECURITY
\fBdeluser\fP needs root privileges and offers,
via the \fB\-\-conf\fP command line option
to use different configuration files.
Do not use \fBsudo\fP(8) or similar tools to
give partial privileges to \fBdeluser\fP
with restricted command line parameters.
This is easy to circumvent and might
allow users to obtain privileges they are not supposed to have.
If you want this,
consider writing your own wrapper script
and giving privileges to execute that script.

.SH FILES
.I /etc/deluser.conf
Default configuration file for \fBdeluser\fP(8) and \fBdelgroup\fP(8)
.TP
.I /usr/local/sbin/deluser.local
Optional custom add-ons, see
.BR deluser.local (8)
.

.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR adduser (8),
.BR deluser.conf (5),
.BR deluser.local.conf (8),
.BR groupdel (8),
.BR userdel (8)