user deletion problem

[Rashkae]

On 10/13/2011 02:01 PM, PM wrote:
>> ls /etc/*.lock and you should find that there is a passwd.lock and or a
>> gshadow.lock file.  If so, have a look in them to get the PID of the process
>> that created the lock file.
>>
> I ran the following and got the following:
>
> myfamily at myfamily-desktop:~$ ls /etc/*.lock
> /etc/gshadow.lock
> myfamily at myfamily-desktop:~$
>
>
>
>>    cat /etc/gshadow.lock
>>
> myfamily at myfamily-desktop:~$ sudo cat /etc/gshadow.lock
> myfamily at myfamily-desktop:~$
>
> gshadow.lock file has no contents to be displayed!!
>
>
>> Then find out if that PID is still in use (and if it's something that
>> should have a lock on your shadow files)
>>
>> ps -e | grep pid_number  (whatever the pid was in the lock file)
>>
> I don't know what to do now? Don't know what these files are and doing?
> Simply tried to delete the user from Users and Groups but again not
> successfull!
>

This might be a little reckless without more information on why that 
lock file is there and empty, but if this were me, I would just delete 
that lock file and see what happens.  (If you break it, you get to keep 
both halves, so it's all good anyhow)

sudo rm /etc/gshadow.lock

If you really want to be safe, you can reboot in single user/recovery 
mode before doing this.  But I can't imagine what process would 
legitimately be keeping a lock on the gshadow file, and I think this 
must just be something left over from a very badly timed unclean shutdown.