How To Add and Delete User in Ubuntu, Debian & LinuxMint

You may need to create a separate account for every user want to connect this system. For adding new users in system there are two commands available in your system, useradd and adduser. adduser command is the enhanced version of the useradd command. adduser command uses useradd command in the backend. This tutorial will help you to add and delete a user in Ubuntu, Debian, and LinuxMint operating systems.

1. Add a New User

For this tutorial, we are using adduser command for examples. The following command will create a new user account named ‘rahul’ in your system.

sudo adduser rahul

Adding user `rahul' ...
Adding new group `rahul' (1006) ...
Adding new user `rahul' (1005) with group `rahul' ...
Creating home directory `/home/rahul' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
Enter new UNIX password: **************
Retype new UNIX password: **************
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for rahul
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
	Full Name []:
	Room Number []:
	Work Phone []:
	Home Phone []:
	Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n] y

Chane home directory – By default above command will create users home directory as /home/. But you can specify home directory at any other location using following command.

sudo adduser rahul --home=/var/home/rahul

Change login shell – You can also specify any other shell for user in place of default, use –shell switch followed by shell name as below.

sudo adduser rahul --shell=/bin/bash

Without home directory – If you don’t want to create users home directory. You can use –no-create-home switch with adduser command as below.

sudo adduser rahul --no-create-home

2. Delete User from System

Now its good to lock or delete any user from the system which is no longer required. Use the following command to delete any user from the system.

sudo deluser rahul

The above command will not delete the users home directory. If you also want to delete users home directory add –remove-home parameter with the command, For example below command, will delete user rahul and their home directory permanently.

sudo deluser rahul --remove-home

You may also take a backup of users home directory before deleting it using the following command.

sudo deluser rahul --remove-home --backup  --backup-to /var/archives/