Re: Is there an opposite to adduser?
On Wed, 30 Apr 1997, Dirk Herr-Hoyman wrote:
> If you look at /usr/sbin/deluser directly, you'll see it's a Perl script.
> A quickly hack too, judging both on the comments and on the functionality.
>
> I just went thru the exercise of setting up a Debian based server for a
> community network, and I ended up modifying both adduser and deluser (and
> delgroup) for our purposes. Is is just me, or is it really the case that
> no Unix has decent tools for administering user accounts :-), I've pretty
> much had to do this on every Unix system I've touched over the years ...
> but now I'm straying :-)
Well, what exactly do you want a deluser command to do? If you accidently
create a new account and get it wrong, there may be a case for deleting it
and starting over. But once a user has been on a system for a while, is it
really sensible to remove them /without trace/.
In particular, do you remove all their files. If you do, what about other
people's dependencies on them. If you don't, then you really need to leave
a trace of the deleted user. Otherwise you might reissue their UID number
and someone will inherit those files.
> So, just like Debian has put forth a great deal of effort in the dpkg, and
> I take my hat off to it, there ought to be a similar effort put forth for
> user account administration. My question here, is whether there is such an
> effort under way?
It would be interesting to hear what you think ought to be contained
therein (and what sort of modifications you had to make for your own
purposes).
--
David Wright, Open University, Earth Science Department, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
U.K. email: d.wright@open.ac.uk tel: +44 1908 653 739 fax: +44 1908 655 151
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