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
utility 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
connection 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
extension 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
automatically 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
environment 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
connection 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
verification 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)]