crontab file of a deleted user

Question

After removing the user, does the crontab added by that user gets removed as well? I am asking this because I can see a user file called "abcuser" in the

/var/spool/cron/

When I cat the file, I can see the crons added by that user. The user no longer exist and the cron's won't work. But why does the crontab file is still there?

quanta · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-10T08:24:50.817

11

By default, userdel doesn't remove the user's cron, at, and print jobs. To do it, uncomment the following line in /etc/login.defs:

USERDEL_CMD /usr/sbin/userdel_local

Here is an example of userdel_local script:

#! /bin/sh

if [ $# != 1 ]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 username"
    exit 1
fi

crontab -r -u $1

So, whenever you execute userdel, any cron jobs owned by the user will be remove.

edited Oct 10 '11 at 08:24

answered Oct 03 '11 at 05:13

quanta

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+1 for that. I learned something this morning; thanks, quanta! – MadHatter Oct 03 '11 at 07:27
The lack of deletion saved me some work after a PEBKAC event, but what's the historical reason for leaving those elements hanging around? – David Tonhofer Feb 28 '19 at 17:17

crontab file of a deleted user

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