Rolling back nodes and media

In the create and create_from_files tasks, Workbench generates a rollback.yml configuration file and a rollback.csv file in the format described in "Deleting nodes" documentation. These files allow you to easily roll back (i.e., delete) all the nodes and accompanying media you just created. Specifically, this configuration file defines a delete task. See the "Deleting nodes" section for more information.

To roll back all the nodes and media you just created, run ./workbench --config rollback.yml.

By default, Workbench overwrites the rollback configuration and CSV files each time it runs, so these files only apply to the most recent create and create_from_files runs. If you add timestamp_rollback: true to your configuration file, a (to-the-second) timestamp will be added to the rollback.yml and corresponding rollback.csv files, for example, rollback.2021_11_03_21_10_28.yml and rollback.2021_11_03_21_10_28.csv. The name of the CSV is also written to workbench.log. Running ./workbench --config rollback.2021_11_03_21_10_28.yml will delete the nodes identified in input_data/rollback.2021_11_03_21_10_28.csv.

The rollback CSV file is written to the location defined in the input_dir setting. If you want to define another directory to put it in, include the rollback_dir setting in your config file.

Note

When secondary tasks are configured, each task will get its own rollback file. Each secondary task's rollback file will have a normalized version of the path to the task's configuration file appended to the rollback filename, e.g., rollback.csv.home_mark_hacking_islandora_workbench_example_secondary_task. Using these separate rollback files, you can delete only the nodes created in a specific secondary task.