Uninstalling Liberty from distributed operating systems using response files

You can uninstall WebSphere® Application Server Liberty using Installation Manager response files.

Before you begin

Optional: Perform or record the installation of Installation Manager and installation of the product to a temporary installation registry on one of your systems so that you can use this temporary registry to record the uninstallation without using the standard registry where Installation Manager is installed.

About this task

Using Installation Manager, you can work with response files to uninstall the product in a variety of ways. You can record a response file using the GUI as described in the following procedure, or you can generate a new response file by hand or by taking an example and modifying it.

Procedure

Stop all servers and applications on the WebSphere Application Server Liberty installation.
Optional: Record a response file to uninstall the product: On one of your systems, perform the following actions to record a response file that will uninstall the product:
1. From a command line, change to the eclipse subdirectory in the directory where you installed Installation Manager.
2. Start Installation Manager from the command line using the -record option.
  For example:
  - Administrator or non-administrator:
    IBMIM.exe -skipInstall "C:\temp\imRegistry" -record C:\temp\uninstall_response_file.xml
  - Administrator:
    ./IBMIM -skipInstall /var/temp/imRegistry -record /var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml
  - Non-administrator:
    ./IBMIM -skipInstall user_home/var/temp/imRegistry -record user_home/var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml
  Tip: If you choose to use the -skipInstall parameter with a temporary installation registry created as described in Before you begin, Installation Manager uses the temporary installation registry while recording the response file. It is important to note that when the -skipInstall parameter is specified, no product packages are installed or uninstalled. All of the actions that you perform in Installation Manager simply update the installation data that is stored in the specified temporary registry. After the response file is generated, it can be used to uninstall the product, removing the product files and updating the standard installation registry.
  The -skipInstall operation should not be used on the actual agent data location used by Installation Manager. This is unsupported. Use a clean writable location, and reuse that location for future recording sessions.
  
  For more information, read the IBM® Installation Manager product documentation.
3. Click Uninstall.
4. In the Uninstall Packages window, select the Liberty package that you want to uninstall, and click Next.
5. Review the summary information.
6. Click Uninstall.
  - If the uninstallation is successful, the program displays a message that indicates success.
  - If the uninstallation is not successful, click View log to troubleshoot the problem.
7. Click Finish.
8. Click File > Exit to close Installation Manager.
Use the response file to uninstall the product: From a command line on each of the systems from which you want to uninstall the product, change to the eclipse/tools subdirectory in the directory where you installed Installation Manager and use the response file that you created to uninstall the product.
For example:
- Administrator or non-administrator:
```
imcl.exe 
  input C:\temp\uninstall_response_file.xml 
  -log C:\temp\uninstall_log.xml
```
- Administrator:
```
./imcl
  input /var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml 
  -log /var/temp/uninstall_log.xml
```
- Non-administrator:
```
./imcl
  input user_home/var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml 
  -log user_home/var/temp/uninstall_log.xml
```
Go to the IBM Installation Manager product documentation for more information.
Optional: List all installed packages to verify the uninstallation.
```
./imcl listInstalledPackages
```
```
imcl listInstalledPackages
```
Optional: Uninstall IBM Installation Manager.

Important: Before you can uninstall IBM Installation Manager, you must uninstall all of the packages that were installed by Installation Manager.

Read the IBM Installation Manager product documentation for information about using the uninstall script to perform this procedure.

Example

The following is an example of a response file for uninstalling the product.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<agent-input clean='true' temporary='true'>
<uninstall modify='false'>
<offering id='com.ibm.websphere.liberty.ND' 
  profile='WebSphere Liberty'/>
</uninstall>
<profile id='WebSphere Liberty' 
  installLocation='C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\Liberty'>
</profile>
</agent-input>

Tip: When you uninstall the WebSphere Application Server Liberty package, you must uninstall all the packages under the same package group that are extensions to the WebSphere Application Server Liberty package. IBM SDK, Java™ Technology Edition, Version 8.0 for WebSphere Liberty using Installation Manager is such an extension. To uninstall the entire package group, simply remove the id attribute in the <offering ../> stanza (id='com.ibm.websphere.liberty.ND' in the previous example) from the response file. Installation Manager will then uninstall all of the packages under the package group.