Deleting content from file repo

Support
#1

Problem:
I have a file repository to which I add files via the API. The question is how to delete these files from the repository. This issue is not covered at all in the PULP API documentation
Expected outcome:
successful file deletion
Pulpcore version:
pulpcore 3.66.0
Pulp plugins installed and their versions:

Operating system - distribution and version:
Alma linux 9 5.14.0-427.40.1.el9_4.x86_64
Other relevant data:

#2

The reason there is no talk about deletion in the documentation is because there is no traditional deletion in Pulp. When you upload/sync content to Pulp into a repository it creates a repository version which is immutable. The repository version is now part of the history of the repository and it can be used to create publications & distributions. We can’t allow users to delete content from a repository, due to the immutable repository versions, so instead you must remove the content from the repository using the modify endpoint creating a new repository version where that content is “not present”. Note that this doesn’t delete the content from Pulp since it still must be present for the previous repository version. In order for content to be truly deleted from Pulp, i.e. no longer in the database/storage, the content must be made into an orphan (not present in any repository versions) and then have orphan cleanup called.

2 Likes
#3

Just to add to this, if you are sure you are not interested in the older repository versions (history), you can set retain_repo_versions=1 on the repository. It will then automatically delete all but the latest version.

#4

As a result, I deleted the publication that described the file being deleted, updated the distribution, and deleted the repository version that contains the file being deleted. As a result, this file is not listed anywhere else, but it is still available in the repository

#5

You have to remove the file from the repository first using modify, then delete every repository-version before the modify call, then call orphan cleanup if you want to fully remove the file from Pulp.