Delete backups¶

Use the pbm delete-backup command to delete either a specified backup snapshot or all backup snapshots older than the specified time.

Note

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.

Starting with version 1.6.0, the command deletes only backup snapshots. Starting with version 2.0.0, you can also delete selective backups.

To delete point-in-time recovery oplog slices, use the pbm delete-pitr command.

Considerations¶

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

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.

Behavior¶

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

pbm delete-backup 2021-12-20T13:45:59Z

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

pbm delete-backup --force 2021-04-20T13:45:59Z

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

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

Output:

Backup snapshots:
  2021-04-21T02:16:33Z

Contact Us

For free technical help, visit the Percona Community Forum.

To report bugs or submit feature requests, open a JIRA ticket.

For paid support and managed or consulting services , contact Percona Sales.

Last update: February 21, 2023
Created: February 21, 2023