If you ever need to delete or deactivate (deactivate is a more appropriate word in PuppetDB context) a node in your PuppetDB, follow these steps.
First: List your nodes.
curl 'http://localhost:8080/v2/nodes'
Second: List details of your node you want to deactivate
curl 'http://localhost:8080/v2/nodes/<fqdn>' { "name" : "<fqdn>", "deactivated" : null, "catalog_timestamp" : null, "facts_timestamp" : "2016-01-08T12:59:38.308Z", "report_timestamp" : null }
Third: Deactivate your node
curl -v -G -H "Accept: application/json" 'http://localhost:8080/v2/commands' --data-urlencode 'payload={"command":"deactivate node","version": 1,"payload":"\"<fqdn>\""}'
Fourth: Check
curl 'http://localhost:8080/v2/nodes/<fqdn>' { "name" : "<fqdn>", "deactivated" : "2016-01-14T09:00:22.792Z", "catalog_timestamp" : null, "facts_timestamp" : "2016-01-08T12:59:38.308Z", "report_timestamp" : null }
Can you deactivate multiple nodes by passing an array of FQDNs for the inner payload value?