The with_each_user command is basically nothing but a shortcut/replacement for constructs like:
root:~# ls /home | xargs -i su - {} -c "whoami"
That is, its goal is to execute the same command for all users in the system in a row. The line above can be rewritten with:
root:~# with_each_user whoami
Additionally, you can filter out unneeded users by their logins, shells and uid, run commands simultaneously, interactively, and store script outputs in log files in a separate directory.
See usage for details.
This is the with_each_user --help
output:
usage: with_each_user [-h] [-m MASK] [-s SHELL] [-u MIN_UID] [-U MAX_UID]
[-c CONCURRENCY] [-d CURRENT_DIRECTORY] [-i]
[-L LOG_DIRECTORY]
command [command ...]
Execute a command for a number users in the server
positional arguments:
command Shell command to execute
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-m MASK, --mask MASK Filter users by their logins. Globbing is here
allowed, you can type, for example, "user*"
-s SHELL, --shell SHELL
Filter users by their shells. For example, you can
exclude the majority of system users by issuing
"/bin/bash" here
-u MIN_UID, --min-uid MIN_UID
Filter users by their minimal uid.
-U MAX_UID, --max-uid MAX_UID
Filter users by their max uid (to filter out "nobody",
for example
-c CONCURRENCY, --concurrency CONCURRENCY
Number of processes to run simultaneously
-d CURRENT_DIRECTORY, --current-directory CURRENT_DIRECTORY
Script working directory (relative to user's home)
-p, --preserve-environment
Preserve root environment. Arguments match the same of
"su" command
-f, --format Format command line with variables custom for every
user. Supported variables: {user}, {uid}, {gid},
{home}, {shell}, {gecos}.
-r, --root Run command with root privileges (do not "su" to
selected user). Option "--format" is helpful there
-i, --interactive Interactive execution. Set this flag to run processes
interactively
-L LOG_DIRECTORY, --log-directory LOG_DIRECTORY
Directory to store log for all executions. Omit this
argument if you want just to print everything to
stdout/stderr