How to reset MariaDB into a "fresh install" state?

Question

I had InnoDB corruption and managed to start the server in read only mode and perform a fresh backup using innodb_force_recovery=5.

This way of starting the service puts the databases in read only mode, even deletion is disallowed.

Is there an official procedure to reset the whole server into a fresh installed (or at least "empty") version?

And in case there isn't, then what are the correct uninstall/reinstall steps to make sure there will be no remaining residues of data that could generate problems in the future?

Answer 1

MariaDB can be reverted to the fresh state by removing its data files.

Say if you run MariaDB on a Debian you can do the next:

systemctl stop mysql
rm -rf /var/lib/mysql/*
sudo -u mysql mysql_install_db 
systemctl start mysql

For some versions of Debian, the mysql_install_db step is not necessary; when starting up if no datafiles exists MariaDB will recreate the internal scheme mysql.* with all default values.

All leftovers like config and log files you have to clean up manually.