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Glossary: Tombstones

When a document is deleted, RavenDB will leave behind a "delete marker" which is called a Tombstone.

Where are They Used?​

  • Replication and ETL - this is needed so delete operations can be replicated to other nodes
  • Indexes use tombstones in order to delete no longer relevant entries that refer to deleted documents
  • Periodic Backup uses tombstones in order to backup "deletions" of documents

Tombstone Cleaning​

The tombstones are periodically cleaned.

Cleaning will occur only for tombstones that were already processed by the modules where they are used:

  • Replication
  • Indexes
  • ETL
  • Periodic Backup
  • The tombstone retaining period is configurable with config entry name = Tombstones.CleanupIntervalInMin
  • By default, the configuration value it is 5 minutes.

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