<a id="ksqldb-rest-api-terminate-endpoint"></a>

# Terminate a ksqlDB cluster in ksqlDB for Confluent Platform

The `/ksql/terminate` endpoint terminates a ksqlDB cluster and
cleans up its resources. To terminate a cluster, first shut down all
of the servers, except one. Then,
send the `TERMINATE CLUSTER` request to the `/ksql/terminate`
endpoint in the last remaining server. When the server receives a
`TERMINATE CLUSTER` request at `/ksql/terminate` endpoint, it writes
a `TERMINATE CLUSTER` command into the command topic. Note that a
`TERMINATE CLUSTER` request can be sent only via the
`/ksql/terminate` endpoint, and you can’t send it via the CLI. When
the server reads the `TERMINATE CLUSTER` command, it takes the
following steps:

- Sets the ksqlDB engine mode to `NOT ACCEPTING NEW STATEMENTS` so no
  new statements are passed to the engine for execution.
- Terminates all persistent and transient queries in the engine and
  performs the required clean up for each query.
- Deletes the command topic for the cluster.

## Example request

```http
POST /ksql/terminate HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/vnd.ksql.v1+json
Content-Type: application/vnd.ksql.v1+json

{}
```

You can customize the clean up process if you want to delete some or all
of the Kafka topics too:

## Provide a list of Kafka topics to delete

You can provide a list of kafka topic names or regular expressions for
Kafka topic names along with your `TERMINATE CLUSTER` request. The
ksqlDB Server will delete all topics with names that are in the list or
that match any of the regular expressions in the list. Only the topics
that were generated by SQL queries are considered for deletion. Topics
that were not generated by SQL queries aren’t deleted, even if they
match the provided list. The following example shows how to delete topic
`FOO`, along with all topics with the prefix `bar`.

```http
POST /ksql/terminate HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/vnd.ksql.v1+json
Content-Type: application/vnd.ksql.v1+json

{
  "deleteTopicList": ["FOO", "bar.*"]
}
```