DROPUSER(1) PostgreSQL Client Applications DROPUSER(1)

NAME dropuser - remove a PostgreSQL user account

SYNOPSIS dropuser [ option... ] [ username ]

DESCRIPTION dropuser removes an existing PostgreSQL user. Only superusers and users with the CREATEROLE privilege can remove PostgreSQL users. (To remove a superuser, you must yourself be a superuser.)

dropuser is a wrapper around the SQL command DROP ROLE [drop_role(7)]. There is no effective difference between dropping users via this util- ity and via other methods for accessing the server.

OPTIONS dropuser accepts the following command-line arguments:

username Specifies the name of the PostgreSQL user to be removed. You will be prompted for a name if none is specified on the command line.

-e

--echo Echo the commands that dropuser generates and sends to the server.

-i

--interactive Prompt for confirmation before actually removing the user.

dropuser also accepts the following command-line arguments for connec- tion parameters:

-h host

--host host Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

-p port

--port port Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file exten- sion on which the server is listening for connections.

-U username

--username username User name to connect as (not the user name to drop).

-w

--no-password Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a password is not available by other means such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password.

-W

--password Force dropuser to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since dropuser will automati- cally prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication. However, dropuser will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

ENVIRONMENT PGHOST

PGPORT

PGUSER Default connection parameters

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the envi- ronment variables supported by libpq (see in the documentation).

DIAGNOSTICS In case of difficulty, see DROP ROLE [drop_role(7)] and psql(1) for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default connec- tion settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.

EXAMPLES To remove user joe from the default database server:

$ dropuser joe

To remove user joe using the server on host eden, port 5000, with veri- fication and a peek at the underlying command:

$ dropuser -p 5000 -h eden -i -e joe Role "joe" will be permanently removed. Are you sure? (y/n) y DROP ROLE joe;

SEE ALSO createuser(1), DROP ROLE [drop_role(7)]

Application 2014-02-17 DROPUSER(1)