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Uninstall and Clean Up

Remove Linux and macOS VMs deliberately, then clean up integrations, images, networking, and the application.

  3 minute read  

Barn manages Linux labs and macOS VMs independently. barn purge removes only the Linux deployment—it does not delete Mac VMs. Keep the barn CLI installed until you have finished removing VMs, integrations, cached images, and host networking.

Choose what to remove

Goal Command
Stop running VMs while keeping disks barn stop; barn mac stop --all for Mac VMs
Delete a single Linux node barn destroy <node>
Delete the Linux lab, keeping persistent disks barn destroy
Delete the Linux lab, persistent disks, and keys barn purge (deletes immediately; --ask enables confirmation)
Delete named Mac VMs barn mac destroy <name...> (prompts for confirmation)

Check barn status (for Linux nodes) and barn mac ls (for Mac VMs), and copy any files you want to keep onto the host before destroying machines.

Full teardown steps

  1. Destroy Linux and Mac virtual machines

    To discard the entire Linux lab—including retained persistent disks and deployment keys—run:

    barn purge

    This deletes immediately. Use barn purge --ask to review the VM list and deletion scope, then enter y/yes to confirm or n/no to cancel. It accepts no --yes, -y, or --force. If you also created macOS VMs, list and destroy them by name:

    barn mac ls
barn mac destroy mac1 dev

  2. Remove SSH and /etc/hosts integrations

    Whole-deployment Linux destroy / purge removes the default ~/.ssh/barn_config integration automatically. If you installed a custom named SSH fragment, /etc/hosts entries, or Mac SSH aliases, remove them:

    barn ssh-config --remove --name lab
barn hosts uninstall --json
barn hosts uninstall --yes
barn mac ssh-config --remove

    These commands remove only Barn’s managed blocks, leaving your personal ~/.ssh/config and /etc/hosts entries intact.

  3. Prune cached images

    Preview and delete cached Linux and macOS images:

    barn image prune --dry-run
barn image prune --yes
barn mac image prune --installers
barn mac image prune --installers --yes

  4. Uninstall Linux host networking

    Preview and remove the shared Linux host network (it stops while any Linux VM is running, so destroy the lab first; Mac VM networks tear down automatically when the VM stops):

    barn network uninstall --json
barn network uninstall --yes

    When Barn uses systemd-networkd, the uninstall leaves the global networkd unit state unchanged if other host links exist or exclusive Barn use cannot be established; the plan reports preserve_networkd, and the applied report explains the decision in checks.networkd.

  5. Uninstall the Barn application and remaining state

    If you installed Barn through a package manager, remove the package:

    Homebrew
    brew uninstall barn
    Debian / Ubuntu
    sudo apt remove barn
    RHEL / Fedora
    sudo dnf remove barn
    • User-scoped install.sh: Remove barn, barn-hosts-helper, .barn-current, .barn-releases/, and .barn-install.lock from ~/.local/bin (and remove the PATH entry from your shell rc file).
    • Manual archive or source build: After stopping all Mac guests, remove the extracted release directory, bin/mac, or any copied Barn.app (Barn Mac.app in 0.9.0), plus ~/Library/Preferences/com.pgsty.barn.plist (io.pgsty.barn.mac-runner.plist in 0.9.0).
    • Manually installed hosts helper: If /opt/barn/libexec/barn-hosts-helper was installed manually and no other user on the host uses Barn, remove it after running barn hosts uninstall --yes.
Warning

Delete ~/.barn (or your custom BARN_HOME) only after destroying both Linux and Mac VMs. ~/.barn holds active VM state, keys, persistent disks, and base images for both workflows; if a VM is still running or destroy fails, resolve the error with barn status / barn mac ls before deleting the directory.

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