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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel: +44 1908 653 739 fax: +44 1908 655 151 -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
