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I have set up Ubuntu 16.04 with PowerBroker Identity Services to login with users from an Active Directory database.

Whenever I login with a new account, the user is added to the list of users that appear when clicking the gears in the top right corner of the unity panel. The Lock/Switch Account list.

Often I need to test what happens the first time a user logs in, but what is the correct way to 'reset' a user that has been logged on to the system?

I can delete their home directories etc., PowerBroker has a cache that I clear as well, but the accounts still appear in the top right corner, so they're evidently not completely removed.

I have been looking into the FreeDesktop Accounts Service, thinking that might include some functionality to 'clean up' a user account, but I haven't found anything that seems related to that.

Things I have tried include, but are not limited to: 

sudo userdel [username] 
sudo rm -rf [home]
sudo rm /var/log/btmp
sudo rm /var/log/wtmp
sudo rm -rf /var/cache/lightdm/dmrc

userdel returns: 

userdel: cannot remove entry '[username]' from /etc/passwd  
/usr/sbin/deluser: `/usr/sbin/userdel [username]' returned error code 1. Exiting.

The user does not exist in /etc/passwd (they exist only in Active Directory).

[username] is the username of the user as read from $USER with \s being escaped and [home] is the path as read from $HOME.

Tobias
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  • Possibly of interest: http://askubuntu.com/a/575390/158442 – muru Jan 13 '17 at 06:20
  • I have seen that one, that is what led me to look into AccountsService in the first place. I am unable to get any further down that road. – Tobias Jan 13 '17 at 07:15
  • did you try just deleting the file mentioned there? – muru Jan 13 '17 at 07:34
  • I didn't know the file even existed, it says to create the file. I've tried deleting the file now and this appears to be the solution. Nice catch @muru . From what I can see, this achieves what I wanted. – Tobias Jan 13 '17 at 07:48
  • you can post an answer, that's fine by me – muru Jan 13 '17 at 11:16

3 Answers3

3
  • you can simply do it from GUI Mode
  • Allsettings->UserAccounts
    then unlock your Accounts panel and you can add ,del the users at very ease.
  • you will be prompted whether to delete the user files or keep them in the database.
Akhil Varma
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1

use the command from terminal

sudo userdel <username>

after this you can delete the home directory of that user using 

rm -r -f </home/username>
Krishna Chalise
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  • I already stated that I've tried with userdel, but perhaps I wasn't clear enough on this. Will edit for clarity. – Tobias Jan 13 '17 at 05:54
0

With help from muru, I found that the correct way to remove the remaining traces of a user after deleting its home directory; is to delete the file named after the user in /var/lib/AccountsService/users/

So what I do to remove a network account that has logged in is:

sudo rm -rf [home]
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/AccountsService/users/[user]

Where [home] is the path to the user's home directory and [user] is the username.

Tobias
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