How to delete a docker image in Nexus3 Repo programmatically?

Sonatype Nexus Repository
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Sorry for this seems to be the very basic question, but somehow I just can’t make it work.

In my most recently updated ubuntu22.04, I installed nexus3:latest (I think it is 3.78.2) so to use it as a docker repo. I used this command:
docker run -d --name nexus -p 8081:8081 -p 8082:8082 -v /opt/nexus-data:/nexus-data --restart unless-stopped sonatype/nexus3

Everything works fine: I can login to the UI, login as admin and then change password. I am create a docker hosted repo and put a docker image into this repo, and pull it, via docker push/pull and curl/API. But I could not delete it (I had this problem with my 8+ year old nexus docker container, in which I could not find a way to delete, and this is the reason I am trying to upgrade to ubuntu22.04 + latest nexus3). Chatgpt said I should do something like this:

  1. get the digest first. This works for me:
    curl -s -u admin -X GET -I -H “Accept: application/vnd.docker.distribution.manifest.v2+json” http://:8082/v2/dockerepo2204/my_docker_img/manifests/latest | grep “Docker-Content-Digest”
    ===> Docker-Content-Digest: sha256:dd1c2b2f417713a3cfcb44af6c62fba79feb0453eccbfcd87ccf5f1d8e012997
  2. use this command to delete.
    curl -u admin -X DELETE http://<my_ip>:8082/v2/dockerepo2204/my_docker_img/manifests/sha256:dd1c2b2f417713a3cfcb44af6c62fba79feb0453eccbfcd87ccf5f1d8e012997
    This doesn’t work. Nothing returned. In face, If I change the digest 2997 to 2999, a random digest, nothing is reported as well.
  3. Chatgpt then told me that I have to set ‘“allowDeleteApi”: true’. But the way it provided, neither UI or curl way worked for me.

So my question: how do I delete a docker image in sonatype/nexus3 docker repo programmatically (not via UI) so I can automatic this step? Any related API pointers or a working example would be very helpful.

Sorry if this question was asked and answered before. I did a quick search but could not find the answer. Thank you!

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What do you mean when you say nothing returned

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I am confused by the waiting. I was told that after my first successful post, follow-up post will be accepted automatically. This is not my first post. What it is waited again? Thanks.

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Sorry, I meant that nothing is shown in the screen after running that command. I should have used the -i option for curl. I can’t see the other claim I made that changing the digests to a random value doesn’t output anything.

After more testing, it seem to me that in my nexus 3.78.2 community version I can use this:
curl -u admin:xxxxxx -X DELETE ‘http://localhost:8081/service/rest/v1/components/’

or this:
curl -si -u admin:xxxxxx -X DELETE http://localhost:8082/v2/dockerepo2204/my_docker_image/manifests/sha256:dd1c2b2f417713a3cfcb44af6c62fba79feb0453eccbfcd87ccf5f1d8e012997

to delete a docker image. The difference is: using the first/components, in the UI you can still see the deleted image, but the second/manifests way UI is cleaned up. In both cases, the blobs are not cleaned up.

So my follow-up questions, for the goal of the original task (delete an docker image completely):

  1. are these two ways both supported? If yes, what’s the difference exactly (other than the above observation)?
  2. more importantly, how to clean the data/blobs after these commands so I can reclaim my disk space?

Again, from Chatgpt, I got this:

To clean up:

  1. Wait 1 day (blobs must be unused for 24h)
  2. Run a “Admin - Compact blob store” task in Nexus

Is this the right step? There are so many different task types and I am not sure exactly who is what.

Thank you!

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Sorry, Karl. I’ve updated your permissions so that your posts won’t be held in a queue.

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Hi Karl,
To fully delete the docker image from the blob store disk, you need to setup two admin tasks in gui to delete it fully. Read through the " Required Final Steps to Completely Delete Docker Assets From Disk" at https://support.sonatype.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009696054-How-to-delete-docker-images-from-Nexus-Repository-3 . Have those two tasks run in order to reclaim the space from the blob store disk. You might also probably want to setup a task for “Docker - Delete incomplete uploads” before running the other two as well to cleanup any images that were incomplete.