|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|
|
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CAVEATS | CONFIGURATION | FILES | EXIT VALUES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
|
|
|
GROUPDEL(8) System Management Commands GROUPDEL(8)
groupdel - delete a group
groupdel [options] GROUP
The groupdel command modifies the system account files, deleting
all entries that refer to GROUP. The named group must exist.
The options which apply to the groupdel command are:
-f, --force
This option forces the removal of the group, even if there's
some user having the group as the primary one.
-h, --help
Display help message and exit.
-R, --root CHROOT_DIR
Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the
configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory. Only
absolute paths are supported.
-P, --prefix PREFIX_DIR
Apply changes in the PREFIX_DIR directory and use the
configuration files from the PREFIX_DIR directory. This option
does not chroot and is intended for preparing a
cross-compilation target. Some limitations: NIS and LDAP
users/groups are not verified. PAM authentication is using the
host files. No SELINUX support.
You may not remove the primary group of any existing user. You
must remove the user before you remove the group.
You should manually check all file systems to ensure that no files
remain owned by this group.
The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change
the behavior of this tool:
MAX_MEMBERS_PER_GROUP (number)
Maximum members per group entry. When the maximum is reached,
a new group entry (line) is started in /etc/group (with the
same name, same password, and same GID).
The default value is 0, meaning that there are no limits in
the number of members in a group.
This feature (split group) permits to limit the length of
lines in the group file. This is useful to make sure that
lines for NIS groups are not larger than 1024 characters.
If you need to enforce such limit, you can use 25.
Note: split groups may not be supported by all tools (even in
the Shadow toolsuite). You should not use this variable unless
you really need it.
/etc/group
Group account information.
/etc/gshadow
Secure group account information.
The groupdel command exits with the following values:
0
success
2
invalid command syntax
6
specified group doesn't exist
8
can't remove user's primary group
10
can't update group file
chfn(1), chsh(1), passwd(1), gpasswd(8), groupadd(8), groupmod(8),
useradd(8), userdel(8), usermod(8).
This page is part of the shadow-utils (utilities for managing
accounts and shadow password files) project. Information about
the project can be found at
⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, send it to
pkg-shadow-devel@alioth-lists.debian.net. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-10.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
shadow-utils 4.18.0 08/11/2025 GROUPDEL(8)
Pages that refer to this page: gpasswd(1), groupadd(8), groupmems(8), groupmod(8), useradd(8), userdel(8), usermod(8)
|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|