BTW where should i report it any idea, no pointers in the man.

-- Saurabh Sharma

So this would be my guess: The first time you invoked userdel, it removed the user from the system (/etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/shadow) but didn't delete the home folder because according to lastlog the user was still logged in. When you invoked it a second time, it failed because the user no longer exists -- after all, it deleted the entries from the various system files. Which left you with all the files in the home folder ... Either way, this sounds like a problem with userdel which, if you can recreate it, needs to be reported as a bug. *From:* users-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org [mailto:users-bounces@lists.fedoraproject.org] *On Behalf Of *sawrub *Sent:* Sunday, May 30, 2010 10:12 PM *To:* Community support for Fedora users *Subject:* [Fedora] 'userdel' irony -- what do you say ? Hi List, I created a user by the name test, and after doing with my testing was going to delete the user using the following command, userdel and also added '-f' for cleaning out the home without leaving any traces of 'test'. But the command says : [root@xbox ~]# userdel -f test userdel: user test is currently logged in Then i noticed that a tab in terminal was open with the user logged in. Closed the TAB and again tried to remove the user. And to irony the user was already gone as now the command said :. [root@xbox ~]# userdel -f test userdel: user 'test' does not exist Tried listing the files and all were there intact. [root@xbox ~]# ll ////home/test// .bash_history .bash_profile .dbus/ firefox-3.6.4.tar.bz2 .gconfd/ .gnome2_private/ .pulse-cookie .bash_logout .bashrc firefox/ .gconf/ .gnome2/ .mozilla/ [root@xbox ~]# I'm totally lost that how is parameter working fully against what man says about it, pert manual -f, --force This option forces the removal of the user account, even if the user is still logged in. It also forces userdel to remove the user´s home directory and mail spool, even if another user uses the same home directory or if the mail spool is not owned by the specified user. If USERGROUPS_ENAB is defined to yes in /etc/login.defs and if a group exists with the same name as the deleted user, then this group will be removed, even if it is still the primary group of another user. Seems that there is some issue with the command parameter, what do you say ? is there some issue or Am i wrong somewhere. -- Saurabh Sharma Linux user number: 490644 http://sawrub-blog.blogspot.com/ Open your doors.......It's time to look beyond Windows

So this would be my guess: The first time you invoked userdel, it removed the user from the system (/etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/shadow) but didn't delete the home folder because according to lastlog the user was still logged in. When you invoked it a second time, it failed because the user no longer exists -- after all, it deleted the entries from the various system files. Which left you with all the files in the home folder ... Either way, this sounds like a problem with userdel which, if you can recreate it, needs to be reported as a bug.

1rst pass: The user has been deleted. No bug. 2nd pass : There is no more user to delete. What to expect?

Argument: user's HOME is not always under /home/. If there is /home/test and /tmp/test and /var/lib/test, which one to delete after the first pass?

I created a user by the name test, and after doing with my testing was going to delete the user using the following command, userdel and also added '-f' for cleaning out the home without leaving any traces of 'test'. But the command says : [root@xbox ~]# userdel -f test userdel: user test is currently logged in Then i noticed that a tab in terminal was open with the user logged in. Closed the TAB and again tried to remove the user. And to irony the user was already gone as now the command said :. [root@xbox ~]# userdel -f test userdel: user 'test' does not exist Tried listing the files and all were there intact. [root@xbox ~]# ll /home/test/ .bash_history          .bash_profile          .dbus/ firefox-3.6.4.tar.bz2  .gconfd/               .gnome2_private/ .pulse-cookie .bash_logout           .bashrc                firefox/ .gconf/                .gnome2/               .mozilla/ [root@xbox ~]# I'm totally lost that how is parameter working fully against what man says about it, pert manual -f, --force            This option forces the removal of the user account, even if the user is still logged in. It also forces userdel to remove the user´s home directory and mail spool, even if another user uses the same home directory or if the mail spool is not owned by the specified user. If USERGROUPS_ENAB is defined to yes in /etc/login.defs and if a group exists with the same name as the deleted user, then this group will be removed, even if it is still the primary group of another user. Seems that there is some issue with the command parameter, what do you say ? is there some issue or Am i wrong somewhere.