Delete users

[vern]

I just imported user accounts for from a list using a script. However the names on the script we just learned were created wrong by the programmer. We are talking 800+ accounts. What is the best way to delete them? All of the UIDs are in order, if I delete the users from the /etc/passwd file, and then delete the home directories will this be sufficent. I am trying to avoid using userdel -r username for each account.

Server is Slackware 10.1 running sendmail

[hafnium]

you could just write a bash script which contains a loop and uses the userdel program. you could execute it and walk away. i found this online and just modified it slightly. i'm not a good programer but something similar should work. please read the code first, as the numbers used are just approximations.

#!/bin/bash
user=1000
stop=1800
while [ "$start" -lt "$stop" ]
do
  echo "deleting user $user"
  deluser '$user'
  user=$(($user+1))
done
exit 0

[vern]

Thank you, It should work because they are in order.
I need to improve my script skills!

[scm]

Is deluser a special prog? It's not on FC. AFAIK you'd have to use userdel, which takes a username, not an ID.

#!/bin/bash 
start=1000 
stop=1800 
while [ "$start" -lt "$stop" ] 
do 
  user=$(sed -n "s/\([^:][^:]*\):$start:.*/\1/p" /etc/passwd
  echo "deleting user $user" 
  userdel -r "$user"
  start=$(($start+1)) 
done 
exit 0

I'd advise changing the "userdel" line into an echo so it just reports the command it'd run, the first time, just in case ...

[vern]

Yes, I tried "userdel -r" which did not work because it saw the names to delete as those, in this case 1000 to 1800, and since there were no accounts with those names it did not delete anything.

I went ahead and deleted the lines out of the /etc/passwd file and then the home directories, so far without a hitch. My only concern is the shadow file showing accounts that no longer exit.

[Rodz]

I went ahead and deleted the lines out of the /etc/passwd file and then the home directories, so far without a hitch. My only concern is the shadow file showing accounts that no longer exit.

Can anyone answer this question???. I have the same problem and cannot resolve it??? Thanks guys.