Delete a server

A server is deleted either when a service is moving to a new server (create the new server, first), or when a service is being retired.

As with other deployment tasks, do the setup tasks before (and the cleanup tasks after) the steps below.

  1. If appropriate, notify relevant users of the change

  2. Remove the server from salt/prometheus/files/conf-prometheus.yml

  3. Deploy the Prometheus service

  4. Remove all occurrences of the server’s FQDN and IP address from this repository

If the service is being retired:

  1. Remove its configuration from this repository

  2. Remove its DNS entries from GoDaddy

  3. Remove its managed passwords from LastPass

  4. Archive its row in the Health of software products and services spreadsheet

  5. Remove its error monitor from Sentry, if used

  6. Remove its web analytics from Fathom Analytics, if used

  7. Remove its resources from Amazon Web Services, if used

  8. Remove its project from Google Cloud Platform, if used

  9. Archive its repository on GitHub, if any

Finally:

  1. Securely erase data:

    1. Activate the recovery system

    2. Connect to the server

    3. Open a session in tmux. Install tmux, if needed:

      apt install tmux

    4. Securely erase data from the relevant device(s), for example:

      shred -z -n 1 -v /dev/sda

  2. Cancel the server via the host’s interface