KeyVault.deleteKey()

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Compatibility

Syntax
Behavior
Example

MongoDB 5.0 is end of life as of October 2024. This version of the documentation is no longer supported. To upgrade your 5.0 deployment, see the MongoDB 6.0 upgrade procedures.

KeyVault.deleteKey(UUID)

Deletes a data encryption key with the specified UUID from the key vault associated to the database connection.

Returns:	A document indicating the number of deleted keys.

Compatibility

This command is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:

MongoDB Atlas: The fully managed service for MongoDB deployments in the cloud

MongoDB Enterprise: The subscription-based, self-managed version of MongoDB
MongoDB Community: The source-available, free-to-use, and self-managed version of MongoDB

Syntax

deleteKey() has the following syntax:

keyVault = db.getMongo().getKeyVault()
keyVault.deleteKey(UUID("<UUID String>"))

The UUID is a BSON binary data object with subtype 4.

Behavior

Requires Configuring Client-Side Field Level Encryption on Database Connection

The mongo client-side field level encryption methods require a database connection with client-side field level encryption enabled. If the current database connection was not initiated with client-side field level encryption enabled, either:

Use the Mongo() constructor from the mongo shell to establish a connection with the required client-side field level encryption options. The Mongo() method supports the following Key Management Service (KMS) providers for Customer Master Key (CMK) management:
or
Use the mongo shell command line options to establish a connection with the required options. The command line options only support the Amazon Web Services KMS provider for CMK management.

Example

The following example is intended for rapid evaluation of client-side field level encryption. For specific examples of using KeyVault.deleteKey() with each supported KMS provider, see Remove a Data Encryption Key.

Configuring client-side field level encryption for a locally managed key requires specifying a base64-encoded 96-byte string with no line breaks. The following operation generates a key that meets the stated requirements and loads it into the mongo shell:

TEST_LOCAL_KEY=$(echo "$(head -c 96 /dev/urandom | base64 | tr -d '\n')")
mongosh --nodb --shell --eval "var TEST_LOCAL_KEY='$TEST_LOCAL_KEY'"

Create the client-side field level encryption object using the generated local key string:

var ClientSideFieldLevelEncryptionOptions = {
  "keyVaultNamespace" : "encryption.__dataKeys",
  "kmsProviders" : {
    "local" : {
      "key" : BinData(0, TEST_LOCAL_KEY)
    }
  }
}

Use the Mongo() constructor to create a database connection with the client-side field level encryption options. Replace the mongodb://myMongo.example.net URI with the connection string URI of the target cluster.

encryptedClient = Mongo(
  "mongodb://myMongo.example.net:27017/?replSetName=myMongo",
  ClientSideFieldLevelEncryptionOptions
)

Retrieve the KeyVault object and use the KeyVault.deleteKey() method to delete the data encryption key with matching UUID:

keyVault = encryptedClient.getKeyVault()
keyVault.deleteKey(UUID("b4b41b33-5c97-412e-a02b-743498346079"))

If successful, deleteKey() returns output similar to the following:

{ "acknowledged" : true, "deletedCount" : 1 }