groupdel(1M)

NAME

groupdel — delete a group from the system

SYNOPSIS

groupdel [-s] group

DESCRIPTION

The groupdel command deletes a group from the system by removing the appropriate entry from the /etc/group file.

The groupdel command must be used with the group argument which is the name of the group to be deleted. The name consists of a string of printable characters that may not include a colon (:) or newline (\n).

Options

The groupadd command uses the following option:

-s: Exercise the safe delete feature. That is, if the gid of the primary group of any system user matches the gid of group, then group is not deleted.

NIS

The groupdel command is aware of NIS user entries. Only local groups may be deleted with groupdel. Attempts to delete an NIS group will result in an error. NIS groups must be administered from the NIS server. If groupdel is used on a system where NIS is installed, it may fail with the error

group x does not exist

(return value 6), if the group specified is an NIS group (see group(4)).

RETURN VALUE

groupdel exits with one of the following values:

0: No error.
2: Invalid command syntax.
3: Invalid argument supplied to an option.
6: group does not exist.
10: Cannot modify the /etc/group file.
11: /etc/passwd file or /etc/ptmp file busy. Another command may be modifying the /etc/passwd file.
12: Unable to open /etc/ptmp or /etc/passwd file is non-existent.
13: group is busy or cannot delete the primary group.

EXAMPLES

Delete the group project1 from the /etc/group file if it exists:

groupdel project1 

WARNINGS

Because many users may try to write the /etc/passwd file simultaneously, a password locking mechanism was devised. If this locking fails after subsequent retrying, groupdel terminates.

FILES

/etc/group 
/etc/ptmp 

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

groupdel: SVID3