NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CAVEATS | CONFIGURATION | FILES | EXIT VALUES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

GROUPDEL(8)              System Management Commands              GROUPDEL(8)

NAME         top

       groupdel - delete a group

SYNOPSIS         top

       groupdel [options] GROUP

DESCRIPTION         top

       The groupdel command modifies the system account files, deleting all
       entries that refer to GROUP. The named group must exist.

OPTIONS         top

       The options which apply to the groupdel command are:
       -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.

CAVEATS         top

       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.

CONFIGURATION         top

       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.

FILES         top

       /etc/group
           Group account information.
       /etc/gshadow
           Secure group account information.

EXIT VALUES         top

       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

SEE ALSO         top

       chfn(1), chsh(1), passwd(1), gpasswd(8), groupadd(8), groupmod(8),
       useradd(8), userdel(8), usermod(8).

COLOPHON         top

       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 ⟨http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/⟩.  If
       you have a bug report for this manual page, see 
       ⟨http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/getinvolved.php⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository 
       ⟨git://anonscm.debian.org/git/pkg-shadow/shadow.git⟩ on 2017-07-05.
       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 4.4                 07/05/2017                      GROUPDEL(8)

Pages that refer to this page: gpasswd(1)groupadd(8)groupmems(8)groupmod(8)useradd(8)userdel(8)usermod(8)