DELUSER.CONF(5)

📦
version 3.157ubuntu2 · 4 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 DELUSER.CONF(5) 💖

okay bestie, so this is deluser.conf, manual page 5 in the File Formats Manual series — it's the lil config file that runs the whole show behind deluser(8) and delgroup(8). let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

/etc/deluser.conf — the configuration file for deluser(8) and delgroup(8). that's it, that's the name 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the file /etc/deluser.conf holds all the defaults for deluser(8) and delgroup(8). each line is one single value pair, and the form is literally:

option = value

double quotes or single quotes are allowed around the value, and you can put whitespace around the equals sign too — she's flexible like that ✨. comment lines though? they must have a hash sign (#) in the first column. first column only. no exceptions, no cozy indented comments, periodt.

also heads up: deluser(8) and delgroup(8) also read /etc/adduser.conf — see adduser.conf(5) — and any settings in deluser.conf may overwrite settings made in adduser.conf. so deluser.conf is the main character here, lowkey 👑

the valid configuration options are, and yes we're going through every single one:

  • BACKUP — if REMOVE_HOME or REMOVE_ALL_FILES is activated, all the files get backed up before they get removed. the backup file that gets created defaults to username.tar(.gz|.bz2) in the directory specified by the BACKUP_TO option. the compression method is chosen to the best that is available. values may be 0 or 1. defaults to 0. 💾
  • BACKUP_SUFFIX — selects the compression algorithm for a home directory backup. can be set to any suffix recognized by tar --auto-compress. defaults to .gz. 🗜️
  • BACKUP_TO — if BACKUP is activated, BACKUP_TO says which directory the backup gets written to. defaults to the current directory. 📁
  • EXCLUDE_FSTYPES — a regular expression that describes all the filesystem types which should be excluded when looking for files of a user to be deleted. defaults to "(proc|sysfs|usbfs|devtmpfs|devpts|afs)". 🚫
  • NO_DEL_PATHS — a list of regular expressions, space separated. every file to be deleted in the course of deleting the home directory or user-owned files elsewhere gets checked against each of these regular expressions. if a match is detected, the file is not deleted. defaults to a list of system directories, leaving only /home. therefore only files below /home belonging to that specific user are going to be deleted. 🛡️
  • ONLY_IF_EMPTY — only delete a group if there are no users belonging to this group. defaults to 0. 🙈
  • REMOVE_ALL_FILES — removes all files on the system owned by the user to be removed. if this option is activated, REMOVE_HOME has no effect. values may be 0 or 1. defaults to 0. 💀
  • REMOVE_HOME — removes the home directory and mail spool of the user to be removed. value may be 0 (don't delete) or 1 (do delete). defaults to 0. 🏠
  • SYS_DELETE_ACTION — the default action to take when deleting system accounts. valid options are "lock" and "delete" (the default). if set to "lock" and not overridden by --force-delete, behave as if --lock were passed and lock the account. see deluser(8) for specific details. 🔒
ok real talk bestie, REMOVE_ALL_FILES and REMOVE_HOME are giving "no takebacks" energy — those files are gone, so make sure that's what you actually want before you flip them to 1. 😭

📂 FILES 📂

  • /etc/deluser.conf

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

and that's the whole page, no notes 💖 this was Debian GNU/Linux's DELUSER.CONF(5), bestie — go forth and configure responsibly, you absolute icon 👑✨🦋

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