--- title: cbbackupmgr remove description: Removes a backup repository from the backup archive pubDate: 2026-08-17T09:53:44.266Z antora: editUrl: https://github.com/couchbase/backup/edit/trinity/docs/modules/backup-restore/pages/cbbackupmgr-remove.adoc xref: xref:7.6@server:backup-restore:cbbackupmgr-remove.adoc[] --- [Consult the llms.txt file for a full list of contents](/llms.txt) [View original HTML](/server/7.6/backup-restore/cbbackupmgr-remove.html) # cbbackupmgr remove Removes a backup repository from the backup archive ## [](#synopsis)SYNOPSIS cbbackupmgr remove [--archive ] [--repo ] [--backups ] [--obj-access-key-id ] [--obj-cacert ] [--obj-endpoint ] [--obj-no-ssl-verify] [--obj-region ] [--obj-staging-dir ] [--obj-secret-access-key ] [--s3-force-path-style] [--s3-log-level ] ## [](#description)DESCRIPTION Removes a backup repository from the backup archive. All contents of the specified repository will be deleted from disk. ## [](#options)OPTIONS Below are a list of parameters for the remove command. \-a,--archive The location of the archive directory. If the archive is stored in S3 prefix the archive path with `s3://${BUCKET_NAME}/`. \-r,--repo The name of the backup repository to remove. ### [](#optional)Optional \--start The first backup to remove. See [START AND END](#START%5FAND%5FEND) for information on what values are accepted. \--end The final backup to remove. See [START AND END](#START%5FAND%5FEND) for information on what values are accepted. \--backups This flag will accept either a single backup directory (e.g. `--backups 2019-08-23T09_36_56.957232625Z`) a comma separated range in the same formats as `--start` and `--end`. See [START AND END](#START%5FAND%5FEND) section for more information on the accepted formats. ### [](#cloud-integration)Cloud integration Native cloud integration is an Enterprise Edition feature which was introduced in Couchbase Server 6.6.0. Multiple cloud providers are supported, see the list below for more information. 1. Supported * AWS S3 (`s3://`) * GCP Google Storage (`gs://`) * Azure Blob Storage in 7.1.2+ (`az://`) #### [](#required)Required \--obj-staging-dir When performing an operation on an archive which is located in the cloud such as AWS, the staging directory is used to store local meta data files. This directory can be temporary (it's not treated as a persistent store) and is only used during the backup. NOTE: Do not use `/tmp` as the `obj-staging-dir`. See `Disk requirements` in [cbbackupmgr-cloud](cbbackupmgr-cloud.md) for more information. #### [](#optional-2)Optional \--obj-access-key-id The access key id which has access to your chosen object store. This option can be omitted when using the shared config functionality provided by your chosen object store. Can alternatively be provided using the `CB_OBJSTORE_ACCESS_KEY_ID` environment variable. When using AWS, this option expects an access key id. See for more information. When using Azure, this option expects an account name. See for more information. When using GCP, this option expects a client id. See for more information. \--obj-cacert Specifies a CA certificate that will be used to verify the identity of the object store being connected to. \--obj-endpoint The host/address of your object store. \--obj-no-ssl-verify Skips the SSL verification phase when connecting to the object store. Specifying this flag will allow a connection using SSL encryption, but you are vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. \--obj-region The region in which your bucket/container resides. For AWS this option may be omitted when using the shared config functionality. See the AWS section of the cloud documentation for more information. \--obj-secret-access-key The secret access key which has access to you chosen object store. This option can be omitted when using the shared config functionality provided by your chosen object store. Can alternatively be provided using the `CB_OBJSTORE_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY` environment variable. When using AWS, this option expects a secret access key. See for more information. When using Azure, this option expects an account key. See for more information. When using GCP, this option expects a client secret. See for more information. \--obj-log-level Set the log level for the cloud providers SDK. By default logging will be disabled. Valid options are cloud provider specific and are listed below. The valid options for the AWS SDK are `debug`, `debug-with-signing`, `debug-with-body`, `debug-with-request-retries`, `debug-with-request-errors`, and `debug-with-event-stream-body`. The valid options for the Azure SDK are `info`, `debug`, `debug-with-request-retries` and `debug-with-request-retries-and-lro`. The Google Storage SDK does not expose advanced logging configuration meaning this option is explicitly ignored, however, this behavior may change in the future. \--obj-auth-by-instance-metadata Depending on the cloud provider, using instance metadata for authentication is disabled by default. Supplying this flag will allow the fetching credentials/auth tokens from (VM) internal instance metadata endpoints. By default, this option is disabled for AWS. By default, this option is enabled for Azure. By default, this option is enabled for GCP. \--obj-auth-file GCP offers the ability to use a file which contains credentials which will be used to perform authentication. The `--obj-auth-file` flag accepts a path to an authentication file. This flag is unsupported for the AWS/Azure cloud providers. \--obj-refresh-token GCP requires a refresh token when using static credentials, this will be used to refresh oauth2 tokens when accessing remote storage. #### [](#aws-s3-options)AWS S3 Options ##### [](#optional-3)Optional \--s3-force-path-style By default the updated virtual style paths will be used when interfacing with AWS S3\. This option will force the AWS SDK to use the alternative path style URLs which are often required by S3 compatible object stores. ## [](#START%5FAND%5FEND)START AND END This sub-command accepts a `--start` and `--end` flag. These flags accept multiple values to allow you to flexibly operate on a range of backups. ### [](#indexes)Indexes Indexes may be supplied to operate on a range of backups, for example `--start 1 --end 2` will include start at the first backup and will finish with the second backup. Note that the first backup is 1 and not 0 and that the `--end` flag is inclusive. ### [](#short-dates)Short Dates Short dates may be supplied in the format `day-month-year`. For example `--start 01-08-2020 --end 31-08-2020` will operate on all the backups which were taken during August of 2020\. Note that the end date is inclusive. When supplying short dates, you may supply `start` or `oldest` as a placeholder for the date on which the first backup in this repository was taken. The keywords `end` or `latest` may be used as a placeholder for the date last backup in the repository was taken. ### [](#backup-names)Backup Names Backup names may be supplied as they exist on disk. For example `--start 2020-08-13T20_01_08.894226137+01_00 --end 2020-08-13T20_01_12.348300092+01_00`will cause the sub-command to operate on all the backups which inclusively fall between these two backups. When supplying backup names, you may supply `start` or `oldest` as a placeholder for the first backup in the repository. The keywords `end` or `latest` may be used as a placeholder for the final backup in the repository. ## [](#examples)EXAMPLES The remove command is used to remove a backup repository from disk. Below is an example of how to run the remove command. The /data/backup directory is used as the archive directory and the backup repository is named "example". $ cbbackupmgr info --archive /data/backups --repo example --all | Repo | ---- | Name | Size | # Backups | Encrypted | Point in Time | | example | 4.38MiB | 3 | false | false | | | Backups | ------- | | * Backup | ------ | Name | Size | Type | Complete | | 2020-06-02T07_49_11.281004+01_00 | 1.69MiB | FULL | true | | | Merged Range | ------------ | Start | End | Count | | N/A | N/A | N/A | | | Cluster | ------- | Hostname | UUID | | http://localhost:8091 | c044f5eeb1dc16d0cd49dac29074b5f9 | | | Services | -------- | | Eventing | -------- | Functions | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 1 | | | Query | ----- | UDFs | | 0 | | | Buckets | ------- | | - Bucket | ------ | Name | Size | | example | 1.69MiB | | | Services | -------- | | Data | ---- | Mutations | Deletions | Size | | 4096 | 0 | 1.69MiB | | | Point in Time | ------------- | Mutations | Deletions | Duplicate Size | | 4096 | 0 | 0B | | | Views | ----- | Definitions | | 0 | | | Analytics | --------- | CBAS | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 0 | | | Indexing | -------- | Indexes | | 0 | | | * Backup | ------ | Name | Size | Type | Complete | | 2020-06-03T07_49_52.577901+01_00 | 1.34MiB | INCR | true | | | Merged Range | ------------ | Start | End | Count | | N/A | N/A | N/A | | | Cluster | ------- | Hostname | UUID | | http://localhost:8091 | c044f5eeb1dc16d0cd49dac29074b5f9 | | | Services | -------- | | Eventing | -------- | Functions | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 1 | | | Query | ----- | UDFs | | 0 | | | Buckets | ------- | | - Bucket | ------ | Name | Size | | example | 1.34MiB | | | Services | -------- | | Data | ---- | Mutations | Deletions | Size | | 2048 | 0 | 1.34MiB | | | Point in Time | ------------- | Mutations | Deletions | Duplicate Size | | 2048 | 0 | 0B | | | Views | ----- | Definitions | | 0 | | | Analytics | --------- | CBAS | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 0 | | | Indexing | -------- | Indexes | | 0 | | | * Backup | ------ | Name | Size | Type | Complete | | 2020-06-04T07_50_06.908787+01_00 | 1.34MiB | INCR | true | | | Merged Range | ------------ | Start | End | Count | | N/A | N/A | N/A | | | Cluster | ------- | Hostname | UUID | | http://localhost:8091 | c044f5eeb1dc16d0cd49dac29074b5f9 | | | Services | -------- | | Eventing | -------- | Functions | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 1 | | | Query | ----- | UDFs | | 0 | | | Buckets | ------- | | - Bucket | ------ | Name | Size | | example | 1.34MiB | | | Services | -------- | | Data | ---- | Mutations | Deletions | Size | | 2048 | 0 | 1.34MiB | | | Point in Time | ------------- | Mutations | Deletions | Duplicate Size | | 2048 | 0 | 0B | | | Views | ----- | Definitions | | 0 | | | Analytics | --------- | CBAS | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 0 | | | Indexing | -------- | Indexes | | 0 | $ cbbackupmgr remove -a /data/backup -r example Backup repository `example` deleted successfully from archive `/tmp/backup` $ cbbackupmgr info -a ~/data/backups --all | Archive | ------- | Name | UUID | Size | # Repos | | backups | 0db3337c-96b0-4b3a-a7fb-bbfd53790e5f | 0B | 0 | The remove command can also be used to remove backups from inside a repository given the following archive: $ cbbackupmgr info -a /data/backup -r example | Repo | ---- | Name | Size | # Backups | Encrypted | Point in Time | | example | 36.01MiB | 4 | false | false | | | Backups | ------- | | * Backup | ------ | Name | Size | Type | Complete | | 2019-09-18T11_13_58.136188+01_00 | 12.00MiB | FULL | true | | | Merged Range | ------------ | Start | End | Count | | N/A | N/A | N/A | | | Cluster | ------- | Hostname | UUID | | http://localhost:8091 | c044f5eeb1dc16d0cd49dac29074b5f9 | | | Services | -------- | | Eventing | -------- | Functions | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 1 | | | Query | ----- | UDFs | | 0 | | | * Backup | ------ | Name | Size | Type | Complete | | 2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00 | 12.00MiB | INCR | true | | | Merged Range | ------------ | Start | End | Count | | N/A | N/A | N/A | | | Cluster | ------- | Hostname | UUID | | http://localhost:8091 | c044f5eeb1dc16d0cd49dac29074b5f9 | | | Services | -------- | | Eventing | -------- | Functions | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 1 | | | Query | ----- | UDFs | | 0 | | | * Backup | ------ | Name | Size | Type | Complete | | 2019-09-19T11_14_40.410627+01_00 | 12.00MiB | INCR | true | | | Merged Range | ------------ | Start | End | Count | | N/A | N/A | N/A | | | Cluster | ------- | Hostname | UUID | | http://localhost:8091 | c044f5eeb1dc16d0cd49dac29074b5f9 | | | Services | -------- | | Eventing | -------- | Functions | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 1 | | | Query | ----- | UDFs | | 0 | | | * Backup | ------ | Name | Size | Type | Complete | | 2019-09-20T11_14_43.410627+01_00 | 12.00MiB | INCR | true | | | Merged Range | ------------ | Start | End | Count | | N/A | N/A | N/A | | | Cluster | ------- | Hostname | UUID | | http://localhost:8091 | c044f5eeb1dc16d0cd49dac29074b5f9 | | | Services | -------- | | Eventing | -------- | Functions | | 0 | | | FTS | --- | Aliases | | 1 | | | Query | ----- | UDFs | | 0 | We can delete the first two backups using indices range such as 1,2: $ cbbackupmgr remove -a ~/backup_repo -r example --backups 1,2 Backup `2019-09-18T11_13_58.136188+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` Backup `2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` All backups in range `1,2` were deleted To delete only backup `2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_0` we can do as follows: $ cbbackupmgr remove -a ~/backup_repo -r example --backups 2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_0 Backup `2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` To delete backups between the 18-09-2019 and 19-09-2019 we can do as follows: $ cbbackupmgr remove -a ~/backup_repo -r example --backups 18-09-2019,19-09-2019 Backup `2019-09-18T11_13_58.136188+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` Backup `2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` Backup `2019-09-19T11_14_40.410627+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` Backup `2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` All backups in range `18-09-2019,18-09-2019` were deleted Finally, we can also provide exact backup archive name ranges such as 2019-09-18T11\_13\_58.136188+01\_00,2019-09-19T11\_14\_29.026324+01\_00. $ cbbackupmgr remove -a ~/backup_repo -r example --backups 2019-09-18T11_13_58.136188+01_00,2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00 Backup `2019-09-18T11_13_58.136188+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` Backup `2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `/Users/carlosbetancourt/backup_repo` repository `example` All backups in range `2019-09-18T11_13_58.136188+01_00,2019-09-19T11_14_29.026324+01_00` were deleted Removing data that is stored in AWS S3 is very similar to removing a local repository/backup, below is an example command which remove a given backup: $ cbbackupmgr remove -a s3://storage/backup_archive -r backup_repo --obj-staging-dir ~/backup-archive --backups '2020-04-22T14_10_18.372643628+01_00' Backup `2020-04-22T14_10_18.372643628+01_00` deleted successfully from archive `backup_archive` repository `backup_repo` ## [](#discussion)DISCUSSION The remove command is used to safely remove a backup repository from an archive. This command is provided because only the cbbackupmgr utility should ever be used to access or modify a backup archive. Removing a backup repository will remove data permanently from disk. Data is not recoverable once it has been removed. ## [](#environment-and-configuration-variables)ENVIRONMENT AND CONFIGURATION VARIABLES CB\_ARCHIVE\_PATH Specifies the path to the backup archive. If the archive path is supplied as a command line argument then this value is overridden. CB\_OBJSTORE\_STAGING\_DIRECTORY Specifies the path to the staging directory. If the `--obj-staging-dir`argument is provided in the command line then this value is overridden. CB\_OBJSTORE\_REGION Specifies the object store region. If the `--obj-region` argument is provided in the command line then this value is overridden. CB\_OBJSTORE\_ACCESS\_KEY\_ID Specifies the object store access key id. If the `--obj-access-key-id`argument is provided in the command line this value is overridden. CB\_OBJSTORE\_SECRET\_ACCESS\_KEY Specifies the object store secret access key. If the `--obj-secret-access-key` argument is provided in the command line this value is overridden. CB\_OBJSTORE\_REFRESH\_TOKEN Specifies the refresh token to use. If the `--obj-refresh-token` argument is provided in the command line, this value is overridden. CB\_AWS\_ENABLE\_EC2\_METADATA By default cbbackupmgr will disable fetching EC2 instance metadata. Setting this environment variable to true will allow the AWS SDK to fetch metadata from the EC2 instance endpoint. ## [](#see-also)SEE ALSO [cbbackupmgr-config](cbbackupmgr-config.md), [cbbackupmgr-info](cbbackupmgr-info.md), [cbbackupmgr-strategies](cbbackupmgr-strategies.md) ## [](#cbbackupmgr)CBBACKUPMGR Part of the [cbbackupmgr](cbbackupmgr.md) suite