Delete API not supported

[sajayantony]

This is a tracking issue which was called out in our CLI repository Azure/azure-cli#2445

[SteveLasker]

See public discussion here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/41446962/how-to-delete-image-from-azure-container-registry

[karolz-ms]

@SteveLasker Can we increase the priority on this? I am somewhat surprised CR got to GA without the ability to delete a repository.

[SteveLasker]

Delete of an image isn't yet supported by Docker either. You can of course delete the repo.
Due to dependency tracking of multiple layers, deleting can be quite complicated to assure you've done the right thing and didn't orphan other images that share layers.
The ability to delete is part of the managed storage work that we're planning on previewing early June.

[marcusschiesser]

I understand that it's good for Azure's business that we can not delete any images, so my monthly bill keeps increasing. More important in this context however - Is there any limit on the size of an ACR repository?

[SteveLasker]

I'm sorry Marcus, we are working through the delete capabilities and will have it out asap. The feature is part of the managed storage feature which we believe will provide many more benefits as a group. Once we get managed storage in place, it will be easier for us to get features out more quickly.
Image Storage is based on Azure blob storage which has a default 500TB limit.
https://github.com/Microsoft/azure-docs/blob/master/includes/azure-storage-limits.md
We really do hear and appreciate this need and will have a preview out as soon as possible.
Steve

[titilambert]

@SteveLasker can you confirm that we can still delete images by deleting blobs in the storage account ?

[sajayantony]

@titilambert - The manifests can be deleted in your storage account. The name of the container in your storage account is the name of your registry.

⚠️ At this point you are at the risk of corrupting your registry.

Here I have an image tagged hello-world:2

I can remove the folder <container>//docker/registry/v2/repositories/hello-world/_manifests/tags/2

Layer data (the actual manifest and binary blobs) aren't stored in that folder and instead under blobs. For e.g. If the manifest has a sha256 of 2075ac87b043415d35bb6351b4a59df19b8ad154e578f7048335feeb02d0f759 the data blob for the manifest is actually stored as a layer. So technically you are just deleting an entry to the manifest.

<container>//docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/20/2075ac87b043415d35bb6351b4a59df19b8ad154e578f7048335feeb02d0f759

And if you list repositories now you will see only

[titilambert]

@sajayantony Thanks ! This is really helpful !

[sajayantony]

@yuwaMSFT2 do you know of any side effects to dropping the tag folder, such as issues to reference links.

[yuwaMSFT2]

No...you can delete the tag folder if you don't want the image:tag to be retrievable.

A specific version of manifest has another reference here:
//docker/registry/v2/repositories/hello-world/_manifests/revisions/sha256
If you delete tag folder only, docker pull image:tag will fail; but user can still request the specific manifest by SHA through REST API. If you also delete the reference in _manifests/revisions/sha256/xxxxx folder, then user cannot request that manifest by SHA as well.

[SteveLasker]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/acr/repository#delete
Note: I'm updating this response as I accidentally posted the wrong delete API.