Removing MixLab

This handbook covers MixLab through the mix command line. If you would rather work in a graphical interface, you already have one: every installer places the MixLab window beside the command line. Both drive the same MixEngine underneath, so everything in this handbook still applies.

MixLab writes almost everything inside one directory. The exceptions are the handful of privileged changes it asked permission for, and taking those back is what mix uninstall is for.

On Windows, Installed apps does all of it

Uninstall MixLab from Installed apps. The uninstaller asks two things, both unticked:

• Also delete MixLab's data: the home, with your databases, certificates and project records.
• Also delete the folders you moved out of it: shown only when [paths] moved runtimes, packages, data or logs somewhere else, and listing where.

If MixLab is open, it asks to close it. Then it checks everything that could stop it half-way: a file in use, or a program running from one of MixLab's folders, such as a php you started through a shim. If anything is in the way, it names it and removes nothing. Close it and click Uninstall again.

Then one administrator prompt undoes the machine changes listed below, and the program goes. If you decline the prompt, nothing is removed and MixLab stays installed. Run Uninstall again when you are ready.

On a Mac, MixLab does all of it

If you installed MixLab from the .pkg, choose MixLab ▸ Remove MixLab from this Mac…. MixLab lists everything it will undo, and anything in the way, such as a node you started through a shim. Close that and press Check again. It asks the same two things as the Windows uninstaller, both unticked.

Remove MixLab asks for your password once. When it is done, MixLab quits, and nothing of it is left: not the commands in /usr/local/bin, not the application, not the package receipt. If you decline the prompt, nothing is removed and the menu item is still there.

The rest of this page is the same work done with mix, which is how you do it on Linux, or on a Mac from a terminal.

See the list first

mix uninstall --dry-run

That changes nothing and names every single thing it would remove:

• the hosts block, and the DNS or resolver rule that routes your names
• the grant to listen on port 80 and 443
• the certificate authority, from every store that trusts it
• any firewall rule left by a shared site
• the entry that starts the daemon when you log in
• the PATH entry
• the privileged helper, and its audit log
• the MixLab window's cache and logs, and, with the directory below, its saved connections and history
• the passwords your databases use, and MixLab's saved passwords and sync sign-in, from your system's password store. If you keep the directory below, they stay with it
• and finally MixLab's own directory

Removing it

Quit MixLab first. If its window is open, it saves its passwords again after they are removed.

mix uninstall

You are asked to confirm, and one administrator prompt covers the privileged half. --yes answers the confirmation in advance, for a script.

Nothing changes until the prompt is allowed. Decline it and your PATH, your login entry and your browsers are exactly as they were; run the command again when you are ready.

A program running from MixLab's folders stops it before it starts. The list marks it BLOCKED, and the command exits 3, so a script can tell close this and try again from a failure. Close the program and run the command again.

The report is a measurement, not a claim. What comes back is what MixLab found on the machine afterwards, row by row, including the rows that answered nothing there. A report that hid those would leave you unable to tell "there was no resolver wiring" from "the resolver wiring was not looked at". The command exits non-zero if anything it acted on is still present, so a script can ask.

Expect the connection to end partway: the daemon is removing the home it serves, so it stops itself. That is the normal ending, and MixLab reads the final rows back off disk once it has, which is what makes the answer nothing is left behind rather than the daemon said so.

Keeping your data

mix uninstall --keep-home

This undoes everything outside the home directory and leaves the home where it is: your databases in data/, your certificates, your projects' records. The daemon stops when it is done, and a later install picks the home up again.

If you moved runtimes, packages, data or logs to another disk with [paths], those folders are a separate choice:

mix uninstall --keep-relocated

keeps them and removes the home. Use both flags to keep everything. A folder you never moved is inside the home, so it goes with the home.

Installing again over the folders you kept

Point the new install at the same folders when it asks where to keep them. When it starts:

• Your projects, sites and services come back from the copy the uninstall left in those folders: the Dashboard shows Restore your earlier install, or run mix home restore. Databases get a new admin password and stay stopped until you start them.

• Runtimes and packages already in them are listed as installed on their own. One MixLab could not check, for example because there was no network, shows under On disk, not listed in Runtimes with an Adopt button. From a terminal: mix runtime found, then mix runtime adopt php 8.3.33 (and the same with package).

• Databases in data/ show on the Dashboard as Service data from an earlier install. Open Review and press Adopt. The service comes back stopped, with a new admin password, and every database and account in it is kept. From a terminal: mix service found, then mix service adopt mariadb@main.

An application's own database account keeps the password the application already has. Only the admin password is new, because the old one went with the home.

Then remove the program itself

mix uninstall removes what MixLab did. The program itself depends on how you installed it.

On a Mac, add --package and the same administrator prompt removes the program too: the commands in /usr/local/bin, MixLab.app and the package receipt.

mix uninstall --package

On Linux, the package manager removes it, and mix uninstall prints the command when it is done. A server without the window has the mixengine-headless package instead of mixlab:

sudo apt remove mixlab              # or: sudo apt remove mixengine-headless
sudo dnf remove mixlab              # or: sudo dnf remove mixengine-headless

On Windows, the installer's own uninstaller already did this part.

Over SSH there is no screen for the administrator prompt, on Linux or on a Mac. mix uninstall asks through sudo instead, for your password in the same terminal. Your account has to be allowed to use sudo.

If even that cannot run, for example from a script with no terminal, remove the Mac's program by hand:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/mix /usr/local/bin/mixengined /usr/local/bin/mixengine-shim \
  /usr/local/bin/mixengine-trampoline /Applications/MixLab.app
sudo pkgutil --forget dev.mixengine.cli

What is deliberately not automatic

The audit log the privileged helper keeps is root-owned, and so is the helper itself. mix doctor reports both and removes neither, because the audit trail is the record of what it is diagnosing. mix uninstall is the command that removes them, and it asks.

This page as Markdown: https://mixnz.github.io/mixlab/en/uninstalling.md