# Fully uninstall chef

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/fully-uninstall-chef/8065>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [March 25, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/fully-uninstall-chef/8065 "2016-03-25T00:22:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mastarke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/db5fbb/32.png) [@mastarke](https://discourse.chef.io/u/mastarke)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/fully-uninstall-chef/8065/1 "2016-03-25T00:22:58Z")

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Hi all,

I have installed chef-server but I have really messed it up and now I just want to fully remove all the files and associated configurations. I have run “chef-server-ctl uninstall” and also done yum remove on the package. However doing this does not fully remove everything. I wanted to know how to basically erase everything so I can start back at square one as I have really messed things up 😉

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**Author:** ![fletchowns](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/fletchowns/32/53_2.png) [@fletchowns](https://discourse.chef.io/u/fletchowns)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:26am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/fully-uninstall-chef/8065/2 "2016-03-25T00:26:07Z")

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Not sure the answer to your question but in general, this is why I like to work in local VirtualBox VMs first. Easy to just reset back to original state and start over i.e. ~~vagrant destroy && vagrant up~~ kitchen destroy && kitchen converge.

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**Author:** ![Chip](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/chip/32/15_2.png) [@Chip](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Chip)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/fully-uninstall-chef/8065/3 "2016-03-25T16:53:58Z")

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For future use, should be a `chef-server-ctl cleanse` command that’ll nuke  
the site from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure). This not only  
uninstalls, but wipes out all config and data.

To manually cleanse, you’ll want to ensure all the processes are stopped,  
then wipe (from memory, this list may be incomplete):  
/etc/opscode/  
/var/opt/opscode/  
/opt/opscode/  
/var/log/opscode

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**Author:** ![mastarke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/db5fbb/32.png) [@mastarke](https://discourse.chef.io/u/mastarke)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/fully-uninstall-chef/8065/4 "2016-03-25T17:08:23Z")

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Thank you. I found that command a few hours after my initial post.