10.10. Removing finalizers on topics

If the unidirectional Topic Operator is not running, and you want to bypass the finalization process when deleting managed topics, you have to remove the finalizers. You can do this manually by editing the resources directly or by using a command.

To remove finalizers on all topics, use the following command:

oc get kt -o=json | jq '.items[].metadata.finalizers = null' | oc apply -f -

The command uses the jq command line JSON parser tool to modify the KafkaTopic (kt) resources by setting the finalizers to null. You can also use the command for a specific topic:

oc get kt <topic_name> -o=json | jq '.metadata.finalizers = null' | oc apply -f -

After running the command, you can go ahead and delete the topics. Alternatively, if the topics were already being deleted but were blocked due to outstanding finalizers then their deletion should complete.