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Delete backups

Use pbm delete-backup to delete backup snapshots and pbm delete-pitr to delete point-in-time recovery oplog slices. Use the pbm cleanup --older-than command to automate backup storage cleanup.

Delete outdated data

Version added: 2.1.0

You can use the pbm cleanup --older-than command to delete both outdated backup snapshots and point-in-time recovery oplog slices. This simplifies the automation of the backup rotation.

The timestamp you specify for the --older-than flag must be in the following format:

  • %Y-%M-%DT%H:%M:%S (for example, 2023-04-20T13:13:20) or
  • %Y-%M-%D (2023-04-20)
  • XXd (1d or 30d). Only days are supported.

During the cleanup, you see the backups and oplog slices to be deleted and are asked to confirm the action. To bypass it, add the --yes flag:

$ pbm cleanup --older-than=`%Y-%M-%D --yes

Behavior

The timestamp you specify is considered to be the time to which you would wish to restore. Therefore, PBM doesn’t delete all backup snapshots and oplog slices that could be used to restore to this time.

Here’s how the cleanup works:

  • Physical and selective backups are deleted up to the specified time.

  • Incremental physical backups are deleted up to the specified time if the timestamp doesn’t fall within the backup chain. If it does, PBM checks for the most recent base incremental backup in relation to the specified timestamp. PBM keeps this backup and the whole chain deriving from it to ensure the potential restore.

    For example, you have the following list of backups:

    Snapshots:
    2023-04-14T19:34:52Z 520.86MB <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-14T19:34:54Z]
    2023-04-14T08:12:50Z 576.63MB <incremental, base> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-14T08:12:52Z]
    2023-04-12T03:02:08Z 498.50MB <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-12T03:02:10Z]
    2023-04-11T19:30:14Z 552.77MB <incremental, base> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-11T19:30:16Z]
    2023-04-11T14:25:51Z 572.41MB <physical> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-11T14:25:54Z]

    You wish to delete all backups that are older than 2023-04-14T15:00:00

    $ pbm cleanup --older-than="2023-04-14T15:00:00"

    This timestamp falls inside the backup chain that starts with the 2023-04-14T08:12:50Z backup. That’s why PBM keeps this backup and the incremental backup chain deriving from it and deletes all data that is older than this backup.

    Sample output 
    S3 us-east-1 s3://http://192.168.56.1:9000/bcp/pbme2etest
  Snapshots:
    2023-04-14T19:34:52Z 520.86MB <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-14T19:34:54Z]
    2023-04-14T08:12:50Z 576.63MB <incremental, base> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-14T08:12:52Z]

  • Logical backup cleanup also depends on the point-in-time recovery settings.

    • By default, PBM looks for the most recent backup in relation to the specified timestamp and deletes all logical backups and oplog slices up to the backup’s restore_to_time value.

    To illustrate, let’s say you have the following backup list:

    Snapshots:
    2023-04-13T13:26:58Z 147.29MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-13T13:27:15Z]
    2023-04-13T10:12:08Z 147.29MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-13T10:12:27Z]
    2023-04-13T08:48:32Z 147.28MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-13T08:48:51Z]
  PITR chunks [2.11MB]:
    2023-04-13T08:48:52Z - 2023-04-13T13:27:15Z

    You wish to delete all data up to 2023-04-13T12:00:00.

    The most recent backup in relation to this timestamp is 2023-04-13T10:12:08Z 147.29MB. So PBM deletes all backups that are older than this backup. It also deletes all oplog slices up to the backup’s restore_to_time: 2023-04-13T10:12:27Z. The output after the cleanup looks like this:

    Sample output:

    Snapshots:
    2023-04-13T13:26:58Z 147.29MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-13T13:27:15Z]
    2023-04-13T10:12:08Z 147.29MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2023-04-13T10:12:27Z]
  PITR chunks [157.94KB]:
    2023-04-13T10:12:28Z - 2023-04-13T13:27:46Z
    • When point-in-time recovery is enabled and you specify the timestamp greater than the restore_to_time for the most recent logical backup, PBM keeps this backup and all oplog slices deriving from it to ensure point-in-time recovery.
    • When the specified timestamp equals to the restore_to_time value for any full logical, physical and base incremental backups, PBM deletes all logical backup snapshots and oplog slices up to this backup’s restore_to_time.

Delete backup snapshots

Considerations

  1. You can only delete a backup that is not running (has the “done” or the “error” state). To check the backup state, run the pbm status command.

  2. You can only delete the whole incremental backup chain, not a single increment. When you specify the increment name of the timestamp for a single increment, the backup deletion fails.

  3. To ensure oplog continuity for point-in-time restore, the pbm delete-backup command deletes any backup(s) except the following:

    The backup snapshot (logical, physical, base incremental) that can serve as the base for point-in-time recovery if point-in-time recovery is enabled. Such a backup is a valid base if there are continuous oplog slices deriving from it up to the now timestamp.

    • A backup snapshot that can serve as the base for any point-in-time recovery and has point-in-time recovery time ranges deriving from it. To delete such a backup, first delete the oplog slices that are created after the restore-to time value for this backup.

    • The most recent backup if point-in-time recovery is enabled and there are no oplog slices following this backup yet.

    To illustrate this, let’s take the following pbm list output: 

    Backup snapshots:
  2022-10-05T14:13:50Z <logical> [restore_to_time: 2022-10-05T14:13:55Z]
  2022-10-06T14:52:42Z <logical> [restore_to_time: 2022-10-06T14:52:47Z]
  2022-10-07T14:57:17Z <logical> [restore_to_time: 2022-10-07T14:57:22Z]    

PITR <on>:
  2022-10-05T14:13:56Z - 2022-10-05T18:52:21Z

    You can delete a backup 2022-10-06T14:52:42Z since it has no point-in-time oplog slices. You cannot delete the following backups:

    • 2022-10-05T14:13:50Z because it is the base for recovery to any point in time from the PITR time range 2022-10-05T14:13:56Z - 2022-10-05T18:52:21Z
    • 2022-10-07T14:57:17Z because PITR is enabled and there are no oplog slices following it yet.

  4. Starting with version 2.4.0, you can delete any backup snapshot regardless the point-in-time recovery slices deriving from it. Such slices are then marked as “no base backup” in the pbm status output. However, at least one valid base backup must remain to ensure point-in-time recovery.

Such a backup is the valid base for point-in-time recovery if:

  • The backup is one of the following types: logical, physical, base incremental
  • There are continuous oplog slices derived from this backup for the desired restore to a specific timestamp.

Behavior

You can delete either a specified backup snapshot or all backup snapshots older than the specified time. Starting with version 2.0.0, you can also delete selective backups.

To delete a backup, specify the <backup_name> as an argument.

$ pbm delete-backup <backup_name>

To delete backups that were created before the specified time, pass the --older-than flag to the pbm delete-backup command. Specify the timestamp as an argument for pbm delete-backup in the following format:

  • %Y-%M-%DT%H:%M:%S (for example, 2021-04-20T13:13:20Z) or
  • %Y-%M-%D (2021-04-20).

Example

View backups:

$ pbm list
Sample output 
Backup snapshots:
  2021-04-20T20:55:42Z
  2021-04-20T23:47:34Z
  2021-04-20T23:53:20Z
  2021-04-21T02:16:33Z

Delete backups created before the specified timestamp

pbm delete-backup -f --older-than 2021-04-21
Sample output 
Backup snapshots:
  2021-04-21T02:16:33Z

To delete backups of a specific type that were created before the specified time, run the pbm delete backup with the --type and the --older-than flags. PBM deletes all backups that don’t serve as the base for restore to the specified timestamp.

Note that you must specify both flags to delete backups of the desired type.

Example

You have the following list of backups:

Backups:
  Snapshots:
    2024-02-26T10:11:05Z 905.92MB <physical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:11:07Z]
    2024-02-26T10:06:57Z 86.99MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:07:00Z]
    2024-02-26T10:03:24Z 234.12MB <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:03:26Z]
    2024-02-26T10:00:16Z 910.27MB <incremental, base> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:00:18Z]
    2024-02-26T09:56:18Z 961.68MB <physical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T09:56:20Z]
    2024-02-26T08:43:44Z 86.83MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T08:43:47Z]
  PITR chunks [8.25MB]:
    2024-02-26T08:43:48Z - 2024-02-26T10:17:21Z

You wish to delete all physical backups that are older than 10:00 a.m.

$ pbm delete-backup --older-than="2024-02-26T10:00:00" -t physical -y

There are two physical backup snapshots, but only 2024-02-26T09:56:18Z 961.68MB <physical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T09:56:20Z] snapshot passes in the specified timestamp. Therefore, PBM deletes this one only:

Snapshots:
 - "2024-02-26T09:56:18Z" [size: 961.68MB type: <physical>, restore time: 2024-02-26T09:56:20Z]
Waiting for delete to be done .[done]

The resulting list of backups looks like this:

Sample output 
Backups:
  Snapshots:
    2024-02-26T10:11:05Z 905.92MB <physical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:11:07Z]
    2024-02-26T10:06:57Z 86.99MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:07:00Z]
    2024-02-26T10:03:24Z 234.12MB <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:03:26Z]
    2024-02-26T10:00:16Z 910.27MB <incremental, base> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T10:00:18Z]
    2024-02-26T08:43:44Z 86.83MB <logical> [restore_to_time: 2024-02-26T08:43:47Z]
  PITR chunks [8.73MB]:
    2024-02-26T08:43:48Z - 2024-02-26T10:17:21Z

By default, the pbm delete-backup command asks for your confirmation to proceed with the deletion. To bypass it, add the -y or --yes flag.

$ pbm delete-backup --yes 2023-04-20T13:45:59Z

For Percona Backup for MongoDB 1.5.0 and earlier versions, when you delete a backup, all oplog slices that relate to this backup are deleted too. For example, you delete a backup snapshot 2020-07-24T18:13:09 while there is another snapshot 2020-08-05T04:27:55 created after it. The pbm-agent deletes only oplog slices that relate to 2020-07-24T18:13:09.

The same applies if you delete backups older than the specified time.

Note that when point-in-time recovery is enabled, the most recent backup snapshot and oplog slices that relate to it are not deleted.

Delete oplog slices

Version added: 1.6.0

You can delete oplog slices saved before the specified time or all slices altogether. By deleting old and/or unnecessary slices, you can save storage space.

Behavior

To view oplog slices, run the pbm list command. If you have deleted the snapshot and want to delete the respective oplog slices, run the pbm list --unbacked command to view them.

Run the pbm delete-pitr and pass the --all flag:

$ pbm delete-pitr --all

To delete slices that are made earlier than the specified time, run the pbm delete-pitr command with the --older-than flag and pass the timestamp for it. The timestamp must be in the following format:

  • %Y-%M-%DT%H:%M:%S (for example, 2021-07-20T10:01:18) or
  • %Y-%M-%D (2021-07-20).
$ pbm delete-pitr --older-than 2021-07-20T10:01:18

To enable point-in-time recovery from the most recent backup snapshot, Percona Backup for MongoDB does not delete slices that were made after that snapshot. For example, if the most recent snapshot is 2021-07-20T07:05:23Z [restore_to_time: 2021-07-21T07:05:44] and you specify the timestamp 2021-07-20T07:05:44, Percona Backup for MongoDB deletes only slices that were made before 2021-07-20T07:05:23Z.

Last update: May 23, 2025
Created: May 23, 2025