usermod and groupmod inconsistency for removing multiple users/groups

Question

I don't understand why usermod has a -r option that can be used in combination with -G to remove groups that the user belongs to, but groupmod doesn't have an option to remove multiple users from a group. Both however have -a to append users / groups. Is there a reason for this inconsistency?

Is it just me, or some of these commands are poorly made and documented? I have to spend some good time figuring out some things.

Answer 1

Which distro? The default usermod as part of the shadow-utils packages does not support the -r switch. It would therefore appear that your distro has added it to that command.

As for groupmod, that only alters the group definition, not user, and so has no need for the -r switch. The default groupmod command also does not support the -a switch.

Again, you need to tell us which distro this is.