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This page describes how to manually unregister a cluster from a Google Cloud fleet.
When you manually unregister a cluster, its connection to the fleet is
removed but the cluster remains. Deleting a registered GKE cluster on Google Cloud using either the Google Cloud console or gcloud CLI also deletes the cluster's fleet membership.
You can unregister GKE clusters on Google Cloud and attached
third-party clusters only. Other cluster types can't be unregistered.
Note that moving registered clusters between fleets (unregistering then
reregistering) is not recommended, as it can result in unexpected
or unwanted behavior: for example, your workloads' fleet Workload Identity
will change, potentially resulting in blocked requests and outages. The
recommended approach is to create a new cluster in the fleet in which you
want your workloads to reside, then move your workloads from your old cluster
to the new cluster.
Unregister a cluster
gcloud
Unregister a GKE cluster
This command can only be used to unregister GKE clusters registered using gcloud container clusters update or gcloud container clusters create.
[MEMBERSHIP_NAME] is the membership name that corresponds to your
cluster. To list all the memberships on the Hub, run: gcloud container fleet memberships list.
[GKE_URI] is the URI of the GKE cluster,
for example: 'https://container.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/locations/us-central1-a/clusters/my-cluster'.
You can obtain the URI by running gcloud container clusters list --uri.
The provided URI will be validated to confirm that it maps to the valid
GKE cluster.
[GKE_CLUSTER] is the location/name of the
GKE cluster. The location can be a zone or a region
for example: us-central1-a/my-cluster.
Unregister an attached cluster
These instructions apply to clusters registered using the latest version of our attached clusters feature. Clusters attached using the deprecated previous generation of this feature should use the legacy command in the next section.
[MEMBERSHIP_NAME] is the membership name that corresponds to your
cluster. To get list of all the memberships on the Hub, run:
gcloud container fleet memberships list.
[KUBECONFIG_PATH] is the local path where your
kubeconfig containing an entry for the cluster file is stored.
This defaults to $KUBECONFIG if that environment variable is set,
otherwise this defaults to $HOME/.kube/config.
[KUBECONFIG_CONTEXT] is the cluster's context as it
appears in the kubeconfig file. You can get this value from the command
line by running kubectl config current-context.
Console
Unregister a GKE cluster on Google Cloud
To unregister a GKE cluster:
Go to the GKE Clusters page. This
page shows all your clusters.
Select the Google Cloud project that the cluster is in.
Click the name of the cluster you want to detach, and then select
View more details in the side panel.
Near the top of the window, click delete
Delete.
When prompted to confirm, enter the name of the cluster and
click Confirm.
Terraform
To unregister a GKE cluster that you registered using Terraform:
Delete the following block from the google_container_cluster resource configuration of the cluster:
fleet {
project = "FLEET_HOST_PROJECT""
}
FLEET_HOST_PROJECT is the Google Cloud project ID your cluster is registered to.
Manage the Connect Agent
The following steps apply only to unregistering attached clusters, where the Connect Agent is installed on the cluster as part of registration.
Optional: Verify that the Connect Agent namespace is deleted
After you unregister a cluster, you can verify that the namespace used by the
Connect Agent has been deleted. This applies to registrations that install the Connect Agent only. To do so, run:
kubectl get ns -l hub.gke.io/project
If this command returns no output, the namespace has already been deleted.
Delete the Connect Agent Service Account
If you created a service account for the Connect Agent, you can delete it as follows:
gcloud iam service-accounts delete [SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME]
Unregister an unavailable cluster
If you want to unregister a cluster that you can no longer access, perform
the following steps:
List the clusters (a.k.a memberships) that are currently registered:
gcloud container fleet memberships list
In the command output, the Name column lists the membership names of registered
clusters, and the EXTERNAL_ID column lists the clusters' UIDs of the kube-system
namespace.
To unregister an unavailable cluster, run the following command:
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-28 UTC."],[],[],null,["# Unregistering a cluster\n\nThis page describes how to manually unregister a cluster from a Google Cloud fleet.\nWhen you manually unregister a cluster, its connection to the fleet is\nremoved but the cluster remains. [Deleting a registered GKE cluster on Google Cloud](/kubernetes-engine/docs/how-to/deleting-a-cluster) using either the Google Cloud console or gcloud CLI also deletes the cluster's fleet membership.\n\nYou can unregister GKE clusters on Google Cloud and attached\nthird-party clusters only. Other cluster types can't be unregistered.\n\nNote that moving registered clusters between fleets (unregistering then\nreregistering) is not recommended, as it can result in unexpected\nor unwanted behavior: for example, your workloads' fleet Workload Identity\nwill change, potentially resulting in blocked requests and outages. The\nrecommended approach is to create a new cluster in the fleet in which you\nwant your workloads to reside, then move your workloads from your old cluster\nto the new cluster.\n\nUnregister a cluster\n--------------------\n\n### gcloud\n\n### Unregister a GKE cluster\n\nThis command can only be used to unregister GKE clusters registered using `gcloud container clusters update` or `gcloud container clusters create`.\n\nRun the following command: \n\n```\ngcloud container clusters update CLUSTER_NAME --clear-fleet-project\n```\n\nReplace \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003eCLUSTER_NAME\u003c/var\u003e with the cluster's name you want to delete.\n\n### Unregister a GKE cluster (legacy command)\n\nIf you registered a cluster using the older `register` command, run either of the following commands to unregister it: \n\n```\ngcloud container fleet memberships unregister [MEMBERSHIP_NAME] \\\n --project=[PROJECT_ID] \\\n --gke-uri=[GKE_URI]\n``` \n\n```\ngcloud container fleet memberships unregister [MEMBERSHIP_NAME] \\\n --project=[PROJECT_ID] \\\n --gke-cluster=[GKE_CLUSTER]\n```\n\nwhere:\n\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[PROJECT_ID]\u003c/var\u003e is your Google Cloud project ID. [Learn how to find\n this value](/resource-manager/docs/creating-managing-projects#identifying_projects).\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[MEMBERSHIP_NAME]\u003c/var\u003e is the membership name that corresponds to your cluster. To list all the memberships on the Hub, run: `gcloud container fleet memberships list`.\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[GKE_URI]\u003c/var\u003e is the URI of the GKE cluster, for example: 'https://container.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/locations/us-central1-a/clusters/my-cluster'. You can obtain the URI by running `gcloud container clusters list --uri`. The provided URI will be validated to confirm that it maps to the valid GKE cluster.\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[GKE_CLUSTER]\u003c/var\u003e is the `location/name` of the GKE cluster. The location can be a zone or a region for example: `us-central1-a/my-cluster`.\n\n### Unregister an attached cluster\n\nThese instructions apply to clusters registered using the latest version of our attached clusters feature. Clusters attached using the deprecated previous generation of this feature should use the legacy command in the next section.\n\n- [Detach an EKS cluster](/anthos/clusters/docs/multi-cloud/attached/eks/how-to/detach-cluster)\n- [Detach an AKS cluster](/anthos/clusters/docs/multi-cloud/attached/aks/how-to/detach-cluster)\n- [Detach another attached cluster type](/anthos/clusters/docs/multi-cloud/attached/generic/how-to/detach-cluster)\n\n### Unregister an attached cluster (legacy command)\n\nIf you registered a cluster using the previous generation of attached clusters, run the following command to unregister it: \n\n```\ngcloud container fleet memberships unregister [MEMBERSHIP_NAME] \\\n --project=[PROJECT_ID] \\\n --context=[KUBECONFIG_CONTEXT] \\\n --kubeconfig=[KUBECONFIG_PATH]\n```\n\nwhere:\n\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[PROJECT_ID]\u003c/var\u003e is your Google Cloud project ID. [Learn how to find\n this value](/resource-manager/docs/creating-managing-projects#identifying_projects).\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[MEMBERSHIP_NAME]\u003c/var\u003e is the membership name that corresponds to your cluster. To get list of all the memberships on the Hub, run: `gcloud container fleet memberships list`.\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[KUBECONFIG_PATH]\u003c/var\u003e is the local path where your kubeconfig containing an entry for the cluster file is stored. This defaults to `$KUBECONFIG` if that environment variable is set, otherwise this defaults to `$HOME/.kube/config`.\n- \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[KUBECONFIG_CONTEXT]\u003c/var\u003e is the cluster's context as it appears in the kubeconfig file. You can get this value from the command line by running `kubectl config current-context`.\n\n### Console\n\n### Unregister a GKE cluster on Google Cloud\n\nTo unregister a GKE cluster:\n\n1. Go to the **GKE Clusters** page. This\n page shows all your clusters.\n\n [Go to the GKE Clusters page](https://console.cloud.google.com/kubernetes/list/overview)\n2. Click more_vert **Actions** next to the cluster in the list that you want to unregister.\n\n3. In the Actions menu, select **Unregister**.\n\n4. In the dialog that displays, type the name of the cluster and click **Unregister** to confirm the action.\n\n### Unregister an attached third-party cluster\n\n\n| **Preview**\n|\n|\n| This feature is subject to the \"Pre-GA Offerings Terms\" in the General Service Terms section\n| of the [Service Specific Terms](/terms/service-terms#1).\n|\n| Pre-GA features are available \"as is\" and might have limited support.\n|\n| For more information, see the\n| [launch stage descriptions](/products#product-launch-stages).\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nTo unregister an attached cluster:\n\n1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the **Google Kubernetes Engine clusters\n overview** page.\n\n [Go to GKE clusters](https://console.cloud.google.com/kubernetes/list/overview)\n2. Select the Google Cloud project that the cluster is in.\n\n3. Click the name of the cluster you want to detach, and then select\n **View more details** in the side panel.\n\n4. Near the top of the window, click delete **Delete**.\n\n5. When prompted to confirm, enter the name of the cluster and\n click **Confirm**.\n\n### Terraform\n\nTo unregister a GKE cluster that you registered using Terraform:\n\nDelete the following block from the `google_container_cluster` resource configuration of the cluster: \n\n fleet {\n project = \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e\"FLEET_HOST_PROJECT\"\u003c/var\u003e\"\n }\n\n\u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003eFLEET_HOST_PROJECT\u003c/var\u003e is the Google Cloud project ID your cluster is registered to.\n\nManage the Connect Agent\n------------------------\n\nThe following steps apply only to unregistering attached clusters, where the Connect Agent is installed on the cluster as part of registration.\n\n### Optional: Verify that the Connect Agent namespace is deleted\n\nAfter you unregister a cluster, you can verify that the namespace used by the\nConnect Agent has been deleted. This applies to registrations that install the Connect Agent only. To do so, run: \n\n```\nkubectl get ns -l hub.gke.io/project\n```\n\nIf this command returns no output, the namespace has already been deleted.\n\n### Delete the Connect Agent Service Account\n\nIf you created a service account for the Connect Agent, you can delete it as follows: \n\n```\ngcloud iam service-accounts delete [SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME]\n```\n\nUnregister an unavailable cluster\n---------------------------------\n\nIf you want to unregister a cluster that you can no longer access, perform\nthe following steps:\n\n1. List the clusters (a.k.a memberships) that are currently registered:\n\n ```\n gcloud container fleet memberships list\n ```\n\n In the command output, the `Name` column lists the membership names of registered\n clusters, and the `EXTERNAL_ID` column lists the clusters' UIDs of the kube-system\n namespace.\n2. To unregister an unavailable cluster, run the following command:\n\n ```\n gcloud container fleet memberships delete [MEMBERSHIP_NAME]\n ```\n\n where \u003cvar translate=\"no\"\u003e[MEMBERSHIP_NAME]\u003c/var\u003e is the membership name that corresponds to\n your cluster."]]
