How to Remove (Delete) a User on CentOS 6

Posted on March 17, 2015 by J. Mays

Category: Technical Support | Tags: Adduser, CentOS, CentOS 6, CLI, Command-line, Linux, Root, Sudo, User, Visudo

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Pre-Flight Check

These instructions are intended specifically for removing a user on CentOS 6.
I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Core Managed CentOS 6 server, and I’ll be logged in as root.

Step 1: Delete the User

It’s just one simple command to add a user. In this case, we’re adding a user called mynewuser:

userdel mynewuser

If you want to remove all of the files for the user, then use -r:

userdel -r mynewuser

Step 2: Remove Root Privileges to the User

For a refresher on editing files with vim see: New User Tutorial: Overview of the Vim Text Editor

visudo

Find the following code:

## Allow root to run any commands anywhere
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
mynewuser ALL=(ALL) ALL

In this case, we’re removing root privileges from the user mynewuser . Remove the following:

mynewuser ALL=(ALL) ALL

Then exit and save the file with the command :wq .

About the Author: J. Mays

As a previous contributor, JMays shares his insight with our Knowledge Base center. In our Knowledge Base, you'll be able to find how-to articles on Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora and much more!