Groupdel

Command

 groupdel

Description

     The groupdel command allows removal of an existing group from the system. The group provided to this command must be an existing group, and deleting a group that is held by any user as a primary group is not allowed. This user must be removed, or have their primary group changed before deletion of the group is possible. Be careful; much like when users are deleted (and still own their previous files if they were not removed, or did not have their ownership changed), once a group is deleted everything that previously belonged to that group will still appear to belong to that group. If a new group is created with the same name, they will own the files that were previously owned by the deleted group.

Synopsis

 groupdel [options] GROUPNAME

Options

 -f or --force

• This option forces deletion of a group, even though it may be the primary group of a user

 -P or --prefix PREFIX_DIR

• This option applies any changes to the PREFIX_DIR directory, and also uses configuration files contained within the PREFIX_DIR directory.

 -h or --help

• Using this option will display a valid list of commands and proper usage of this command

 -R or --root CHROOT_DIR

• This option applies any changes to the CHROOT_DIR directory, and will also use configuration files contained within the CHROOT_DIR directory

Return values

There are 5 possible return values when the groupdel command returns from execution.

• 0: Successful execution of groupdel command
• 2: Invalid syntax upon execution
• 3: This group cannot be deleted (does not exist)
• 8: This group is the primary group of an existing user (cannot be removed)
• 10: Unable to update group file

Examples

Example 1: Delete a group that is not the primary group of any user

 groupdel group1

Example 2: Delete a group that may be the primary group of a user

 groupdel -f group1
 groupdel --force group1

Example 3: Retrieve help menu for the groupdel command

 groupdel -h
 groupdel --help

Warning

Files and folders that belong to a group that has been deleted will still be owned by the group ID of the deleted group. If a new group is created with the same group ID, this new group will own all files previously owned by that deleted group.