If you have installed Ceph in your Proxmox VE environment and, for any reason, need to completely remove it, this article will guide you step-by-step to ensure everything is properly cleaned from the system.
⚠️ Attention: This procedure completely removes Ceph and its data. Make sure you no longer need the stored information or perform a full backup before proceeding.
📌 When to Remove Ceph?
Some scenarios where you might want to remove Ceph from your environment:
- You are migrating to another storage system;
- You installed Ceph for testing purposes only;
- You are experiencing issues and want to reinstall from scratch;
- You need to free up disk space.
🚧 Steps to Remove Ceph in Proxmox
Open your Proxmox server terminal and follow the commands below in order. Preferably, execute as root.
1. Stop Ceph services
systemctl stop ceph-mon.target
systemctl stop ceph-mgr.target
systemctl stop ceph-mds.target
systemctl stop ceph-osd.target
2. Remove startup files and processes
rm -rf /etc/systemd/system/ceph*
killall -9 ceph-mon ceph-mgr ceph-mds
3. Remove data directories
rm -rf /var/lib/ceph/mon/ /var/lib/ceph/mgr/ /var/lib/ceph/mds/
4. Use Proxmox utility to clean Ceph
pveceph purge
5. Remove system packages
apt purge ceph-mon ceph-osd ceph-mgr ceph-mds
apt purge ceph-base ceph-mgr-modules-core
6. Delete residual configurations
rm -rf /etc/ceph/*
rm -rf /etc/pve/ceph.conf
rm -rf /etc/pve/priv/ceph.*
✅ Conclusion
After these steps, Ceph will be completely removed from your Proxmox server. This process is useful for those reorganizing storage infrastructure or fixing problematic installations.
If you plan to reinstall Ceph from scratch, this is a good starting point. Otherwise, enjoy the performance and space gains that removal can bring in smaller environments.
