KOTS Admin Console stores application support bundles in two locations: metadata in Kubernetes Secrets and the bundle archives in object storage (such as MinIO). As your system accumulates support bundles over time, this can lead to:
- Performance degradation
- Potential out-of-memory (OOM) events
- Disk space shortages
While the Admin Console UI provides a way to remove old support bundles, performance issues may make this approach impractical when there are too many bundles. This guide presents alternative command-line methods using kubectl to efficiently manage and remove support bundles.
Warning: The following operations manipulate internal KOTS data structures. These procedures may change without notice in future KOTS releases. Download any required support bundles before proceeding.
Prerequisites
-
kubectl access to your Kubernetes cluster
-
Proper permissions to execute commands in the KOTS namespace
Step 1 : Delete all support bundle metadata from Kubernetes Secrets
export NAMESPACE=<namespace>
kubectl get secrets -n $NAMESPACE --no-headers=true | grep "^supportbundle" | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kubectl delete secret
Step 2: Delete support bundle archives from KOTS object storage (when Minio is used)
# exec into minio pod
kubectl exec -it sts/kotsadm-minio -n <namespace> -- sh
mc alias set myminio http://localhost:9000 $MINIO_ACCESS_KEY $MINIO_SECRET_KEY
# list all support bundle archives
mc ls --summarize --recursive myminio/kotsadm/supportbundles
e.g.
\[2025-05-05 23:52:03 UTC\] 1.4KiB STANDARD 2whlz1oeebtpazvjwbiyggp3sf0/redactions.gz
\[2025-05-05 23:52:03 UTC\] 131KiB STANDARD 2whlz1oeebtpazvjwbiyggp3sf0/supportbundle.tar.gz
\[2025-05-05 23:52:03 UTC\] 1.7KiB STANDARD 2whlz1oeebtpazvjwbiyggp3sf0/treeindex.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:00:17 UTC\] 1.5KiB STANDARD 2whmz3ghm3yq4izcwnqit7ijxlk/redactions.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:00:17 UTC\] 130KiB STANDARD 2whmz3ghm3yq4izcwnqit7ijxlk/supportbundle.tar.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:00:17 UTC\] 1.7KiB STANDARD 2whmz3ghm3yq4izcwnqit7ijxlk/treeindex.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:01:32 UTC\] 1.4KiB STANDARD 2whn8unuugrvj6kk1vs3qsmpwsu/redactions.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:01:32 UTC\] 130KiB STANDARD 2whn8unuugrvj6kk1vs3qsmpwsu/supportbundle.tar.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:01:32 UTC\] 1.7KiB STANDARD 2whn8unuugrvj6kk1vs3qsmpwsu/treeindex.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:01:43 UTC\] 1.5KiB STANDARD 2whn9xboeoukze2hdkegqkheppz/redactions.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:01:43 UTC\] 129KiB STANDARD 2whn9xboeoukze2hdkegqkheppz/supportbundle.tar.gz
\[2025-05-06 00:01:43 UTC\] 1.7KiB STANDARD 2whn9xboeoukze2hdkegqkheppz/treeindex.gz
Total Size: 533 KiB
Total Objects: 12
# delete all support bundle archives with dry-run
mc rm --recursive --force --dry-run myminio/kotsadm/supportbundles/
# delete all support bundle archives
mc rm --recursive --force myminio/kotsadm/supportbundles/
# delete support bundle archives by date filter
mc rm --recursive --force myminio/kotsadm/supportbundles/ --older-than 7d10h31s
Verifying Changes
After completing these steps, verify that:
- The KOTS Admin Console still functions properly
- Your application can still be managed normally
- Disk space has been reclaimed
From KOTS 1.130.9
Follow this guide Enable pruning of application archives and support bundle from KOTS 1.130.9 as the prune feature is implemented.