High availability

Uninstall high availability

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The uninstaller removes Proto Fleet HA from one host at a time. Choose whether to keep the cluster state or permanently delete it.

GoalCommandResult
Remove the runtime and keep cluster statefleet-ha uninstallPreserves configuration, credentials, database data, and coordination data
Prepare the host for a fresh installationfleet-ha uninstall --purge-dataPermanently deletes all local HA state after the runtime is removed

If you plan to reinstall, use --purge-data during the original uninstall. State retained by an uninstall without this option blocks a fresh installation and cannot be removed by running uninstall again later.

Before you begin

  • Download a current Proto Fleet release archive and matching .sha256 file for each host architecture.
  • Use the fleet-ha binary from the extracted release, not the copy inside the installation you are removing.
  • Keep SSH access available.
  • Leave Docker running; the uninstaller needs the Docker daemon.
  • For a three-host reset, use fleet-ha status on both full Fleet hosts to identify the passive and active hosts.

The uninstaller supports intact HA installations. If installation-owned files are already missing or damaged, see incomplete installations.

Remove the full cluster

Run the uninstaller in this order:

  1. Witness (ha-c)
  2. Passive Fleet host
  3. Active Fleet host

Each invocation changes only the local host.

1

Verify and extract the release

The commands below use the ARM64 archive for v0.2.10. If you downloaded a different release or architecture, use those filenames instead.

On the host you are removing, verify and extract the archive:

$cd /var/tmp
$sha256sum --check proto-fleet-v0.2.10-arm64.tar.gz.sha256
$mkdir -m 0700 proto-fleet-v0.2.10-uninstall
$tar -xzf proto-fleet-v0.2.10-arm64.tar.gz \
>  -C proto-fleet-v0.2.10-uninstall
$cd proto-fleet-v0.2.10-uninstall

The extracted directory must contain deployment/ha/fleet-ha.

2

Run uninstall

To remove the runtime and keep cluster state:

$sudo ./deployment/ha/fleet-ha uninstall

To prepare the host for a fresh guided installation:

$sudo ./deployment/ha/fleet-ha uninstall --purge-data
3

Confirm the local removal

Review the detected node type (witness or database) and the list of data that will be kept or deleted. Type UNINSTALL to continue.

Wait for the command to finish before moving to the next host.

With --purge-data, the command deletes /etc/proto-fleet/ha and /var/lib/proto-fleet/ha only after local services and the HA firewall have stopped.

The uninstaller preserves:

  • Docker and installed system packages
  • Docker images and volumes
  • Unrelated containers and firewall configuration
  • Host networking and SSH access

After all three hosts are purged, you can run the guided HA installation again.