Decommission a site

Decommission a site

Use this when a site is permanently closing (lease ended, tenant moved out, site consolidated). Cameras are soft-deleted — event history is preserved for the retention window — but the gateway and site records are removed outright.

Danger

Delete order matters: cameras first, gateway second, site last. Deleting the gateway while cameras are still attached returns 409 CONFLICT (US-GW-6). Deleting the site before its gateway leaves an orphan gateway.

Caution

Clip retention grace still applies after site deletion. Events recorded up to the deletion moment remain readable via the Events page until the org’s retention TTL expires. See Clip retention policy.

Procedure

1. Confirm the customer has authorised decommissioning, in writing. Keep the email with the work order.

2. Export all clips of interest. Admin → Events → filter by site → Bulk export (US-OPS-07). Expect ~2 GB per camera per month of 24/7 recording.

3. Export the site’s audit log. Admin → Audit log → filter by site → Export CSV. This is your evidentiary record.

4. Disable all alert rules scoped to this site. Admin → Alert rules → filter by site → Disable. Prevents spurious cool-down alerts while cameras go dark.

5. Soft-delete every camera at the site. Cameras → filter by site → bulk select → Delete. Confirms one by one.

6. At the physical site, cut PoE at each switch port. Unmount cameras. Reclaim cable if re-use is planned.

7. Power off the gateway host. Unplug it from the rack. Tag with site name + decommission date for RMA or inventory.

8. In the UI, Gateways → (this gateway) → Delete. If the delete button is disabled, a camera is still attached — return to step 5.

9. Admin → Sites → (this site) → Delete. Confirm by typing the site name.

10. Verify in Audit log that site.deleted, gateway.deleted, and N × camera.deleted entries are present with the same correlation timestamp.

Common variations

• Gateway hardware being redeployed to another site — factory-reset the gateway (wipe /etc/novavms/gateway.yaml) before re-pairing at the new site. Re-using an API key across sites is not supported.
• Cameras being redeployed — factory-reset each camera via its web UI before remounting. Old motion zones and NTP config are scene-specific.
• Partial decommission (one floor of a multi-floor site) — don’t delete the site. Delete only those cameras and leave the gateway.

If this didn’t work

• Gateway delete returns 409 → one or more cameras are still attached or disabled-but-not-deleted. Re-check the camera list.
• Site delete hangs → check the audit log for a camera.delete still pending; wait 30 s and retry.

Related

• RMA procedure
• Clip retention policy
• Export a clip as evidence