25th Anniversary Savings | 25% Off Dedicated Servers*Shop Now
25th Anniversary Savings | 25% Off VPS Hosting* †††Shop Now
Dedicated Hosting Deals | From $99/moShop Now
Earn hosting credits and a chance to win an Amazon gift card when you refer friends to Liquid Web!Read our promo rules

How to Remove (Delete) a User on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Reading Time: < 1 minute
Users via Command Line 101: Basic User Interaction
I. How to Add a User and Grant Root Privileges on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
II. How to Remove (Delete) a User on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Pre-Flight Check

  • These instructions are intended specifically for removing a user on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
  • I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Core Managed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS server, and I’ll be logged in as root.

Step 1: Delete the User

It’s just one simple command to delete a user. In this case, we’re deleting 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

visudo

Find the following code:

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

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

mynewuser ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Then exit and save the file with the key commands Ctrl-x, Y, enter.

Avatar for J. Mays

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!

Latest Articles

How to Install Adminer MySQL Database Management Tool on AlmaLinux

Read Article

What is CGI-Bin and What Does it Do?

Read Article

Top 10 Password Security Standards

Read Article

Top 10 Password Security Standards

Read Article

How to Use the WP Toolkit to Secure and Update WordPress

Read Article