Bulk Delete Rackspace Cloud Files data via API

Sometimes it is necessary to delete all the content of the Cloud Files containers, however, the API does not have a proper method to delete the data and the containers on the same API call. Also, accoring to the documentation, you can only delete empty containers.

So, in cases where you need to delete the data and the containers at the same time, you should follow the next steps:

1. Download Turbolift, I know it is an old tool.

   git clone https://github.com/cloudnull/turbolift
   cd turbolift
   

2. In order to get and isolated installation, we are going to create a Python Virtual Environment (virtualenv)

   mkvirtualenv turbolift
   workon turbolift
   

3. Install the tool

   pip install turbolift
   

4. Now, prior to start to play with the API calls, we need to grab some data to authenticate with the API:

   Variable	Definition
   USERNAME	This is the Rackspace Public Cloud username
   APIKEY	This is your API-KEY
   REGION	This is the Region where the Cloud Files are located (dfw, ord, iad, lon, hkg)
   TOKEN	The TOKEN is generated after you get authenticated
   ENDPOINT	This ENDPOINT is given also after you get authenticated

5. Next step, we are going to use cURL, to perform all the API calls:

   • First of all, get the TOKEN:

   USERNAME=YOUR-USERNAME
   APIKEY=YOUR-APIKEY
   TOKEN=$(curl -s -XPOST https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/tokens \
         -d'{"auth":{"RAX-KSKEY:apiKeyCredentials":{"username":"'$USERNAME'","apiKey":"'$APIKEY'"}}}' \
         -H"Content-type:application/json" | jq '.access.token.id' | tr -d "\"")
   

   • Next step, get the ENDPOINT:

   ENDPOINT=$(curl -s -XPOST https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/tokens \
           -d'{"auth":{"RAX-KSKEY:apiKeyCredentials":{"username":"'$CL_USERNAME'","apiKey":"'$APIKEY'"}}}' \
           -H"Content-type:application/json" | jq '.access.serviceCatalog[] | select((.name=="cloudFiles") or (.name=="cloudFilesCDN")) | {name} + .
           endpoints[] | .publicURL' | tr -d "\"" | grep -v cdn | grep -i $REGION)
   

   In this case we are skipping all te CDN endpoints, but you can add them if is necessary.

6. With all the collected data, next step is use turbolift to delete the Cloud Files container and their data. To do it, I use a for-loop:

   for i in $(curl -s -H "X-Auth-Token: $TOKEN" $ENDPOINT); do turbolift -u $USERNAME -a $APIKEY --os-rax-auth $REGION delete -c $i ; done
   

Now, you have all the Data and Cloud Files containers deleted on one region.

😄