Deleting artifacts from the repository

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You can permanently delete artifacts from a Requirements Management (RM) application repository by using the Delete from Repository feature. Use this procedure to delete sensitive data or to resolve a data spill.

Before you begin

Warning: This feature is intended only as a mechanism to carefully and permanently delete sensitive data from a repository and should not be used for reducing database size or deleting general resources.
To enable this feature, you must meet the following conditions:
  • Use version 6.0.2 or later (for 6.x versions).
  • Use version 7.0.2 or later (for 7.x versions).
  • Have the JazzAdmins permission.
  • Set the data.purge.enabled advanced property to true.
  • Set the dump.dir advanced property to an absolute file system path.
  • Have access to the RM application server file system.
Important:
  • In previous 6.x versions, data was stored by using the Jazz Foundation Service (JFS) APIs only and was referred to as JFS data. The JFS data was deleted by using the delete feature. However, starting with the 7.0 version, most of the data is created and managed by using the 0.6 API storage mechanism and is referred to as 0.6 data. The deletion process and behavior for 0.6 data is different as compared to JFS data. When you use the delete feature, the 0.6 data is redacted or edited in-place while the JFS data is deleted. For more information, see Difference between JFS data and 0.6 data.
  • The Delete Resource Data wizard is no longer available in the application under the Delete from Repository tab. You must use a repotools command to delete the data due to restrictions on the API that manages and updates 0.6 data. DOORS Next server must not be online when you run this command. For more information, see Running the purge repotools command.

About this task

Typically, when you delete an artifact from an RM project, the artifact is removed from the project and is archived in the repository. However, if you have sensitive data that you want to permanently delete from the repository, you can use the Delete from Repository feature to accomplish this task.

The Delete from Repository process for JFS data and 0.6 data includes three main steps.
  1. Identify the artifacts for deletion. You can use the Export Data Dump option to export resources to the file system where you can analyze them for sensitive data. For 0.6 data, all the data for the selected component or project is exported. For JFS data, you might choose to limit it to only a subset of the storage areas most likely to contain sensitive data or export the content of all storage areas. You can search through these exported files to identify which resources contain sensitive information. The search result creates a list of URLs for the versions that require deletion.
    Note: A project area is selected for export, by default.
  2. Create a list of version URLs for the system to delete JFS data. For 0.6 data, append a set of serialized-item-handles to redact the 0.6 data. This list must be stored in a plain text file and have only one URL per line. For more information, see Running the purge repotools command.
  3. After the system deletes or redacts the specified URLs and their history, you verify that all the sensitive data was purged from the repository. To do this, you export the data to the file system again, repeat the search for sensitive data, and then delete all the files that were exported.
For more information and instructions for deleting sensitive data, see Delete from Repository feature on Jazz.net.
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