Snapshots: Setting Expirations

IN THIS ARTICLE

• Outlines how to set an expiration on each snapshot which will automatically delete it at the specified time

REQUIREMENTS

• Qumulo Core 2.5.1 or above
• Command line (CLI) tools installed via API & Tools tab

DETAILS

When you create a snapshot via the qq CLI, you can specify either the time (in UTC) at which to delete the snapshot or the time to live.

• Here’s an example of creating a snapshot that expires on January 31, 2017 at midnight UTC:

qq snapshot_create_snapshot --expiration 2017-01-31T00:00:00Z

• The output of the command will result in:

{
 "created_by_policy": false,
 "directory_name": "1_OnDemand",
 "expiration": "2017-01-31T00:00:00Z",
 "id": 1,
 "name": "",
 "source_path": "/",
 "timestamp": "2016-12-06T23:34:47.143520105Z"
}

• Below is an example of creating a snapshot that expires in one year:

qq snapshot_create_snapshot --timetolive 365d

• The output will include a timestamp correlating to the specified time to live.

{
 "created_by_policy": false,
 "directory_name": "2_OnDemand",
 "expiration": "2017-12-06T23:36:34.94867Z",
 "id": 2,
 "name": "",
 "source_path": "/",
 "timestamp": "2016-12-06T23:36:34.999517565Z"
}

Note that all times are expressed in UTC.

If you don’t specify an expiration time or time to live, the snapshot will never be automatically deleted.

To change or remove the expiration on existing snapshots, you can use the snapshot ID from the UI with the below command:

qq snapshot_modify_snapshot

NOTE: The snapshot ID is the five digit number that is featured at the beginning of the path string (ex. 63040_test homedir_test)

For example, to set the snapshot to never expire you would use the following command:

qq snapshot_modify_snapshot -i SNAPSHOT_ID -e ''

To have the snapshot expire in a specific amount of time in the future (1 hour, 1 month, 1 year, etc), you can use the following command:

qq snapshot_modify_snapshot -i SNAPSHOT_ID -t [months,weeks,days,hours,minutes]

RESOLUTION

You should now be able to successfully set the expiration on a snapshot.

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