View, modify, and delete lifecycle policies

Use the following procedures to view, modify and delete existing lifecycle policies.

View lifecycle policies

Use one of the following procedures to view a lifecycle policy.

Console

To view a lifecycle policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager.

3. Select a lifecycle policy from the list. The Details tab displays information about the policy.

Command line

Use the get-lifecycle-policy command to display information about a lifecycle policy.

aws dlm get-lifecycle-policy --policy-id policy-0123456789abcdef0

The following is example output. It includes the information that you specified, plus metadata inserted by AWS.

{
   "Policy":{
      "Description": "My first policy",
      "DateCreated": "2018-05-15T00:16:21+0000",
      "State": "ENABLED",
      "ExecutionRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::210774411744:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole",
      "PolicyId": "policy-0123456789abcdef0",
      "DateModified": "2018-05-15T00:16:22+0000",
      "PolicyDetails": {
        "PolicyType":"EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT",
         "ResourceTypes": [
            "VOLUME"
         ],
         "TargetTags": [
            {
               "Value": "115",
               "Key": "costcenter"
            }
         ],
         "Schedules": [
            {
               "TagsToAdd": [
                  {
                     "Value": "myDailySnapshot",
                     "Key": "type"
                  }
               ],
               "RetainRule": {
                  "Count": 5
               },
               "CopyTags": false, 
               "CreateRule": {
                  "Interval": 24,
                  "IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
                  "Times": [
                     "03:00"
                  ]
               },
               "Name": "DailySnapshots"
            }
         ]
      }
   }
}

Modify lifecycle policies

Considerations for modifying policies

• If you modify an AMI or snapshot policy by removing its target tags, the volumes or instances with those tags are no longer managed by the policy.

• If you modify a schedule name, the snapshots or AMIs created under the old schedule name are no longer managed by the policy.

• If you modify an age-based retention schedule to use a new time interval, the new interval is used only for new snapshots or AMIs created after the change. The new schedule does not affect the retention schedule of snapshots or AMIs created before the change.

• You cannot change the retention schedule of a policy from count-based to age-based after creation. To make this change, you must create a new policy.

• If you disable a policy with an age-based retention schedule, the snapshots or AMIs that are set to expire while the policy is disabled are retained indefinitely. You must delete the snapshots or deregister the AMIs manually. When you re-enable the policy, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager resumes deleting snapshots or deregistering AMIs as their retention periods expire.

• If you disable a policy with a count-based retention schedule, the policy stops creating and deleting snapshots or AMIs. When you re-enable the policy, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager resumes creating snapshots and AMIs, and it resumes deleting snapshots or AMIs as the retention threshold is met.

• If you disable a policy that has a snapshot archiving-enabled policy, snapshots that are in the archive tier at the time of disabling the policy are no longer managed by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager. You must manually delete the snapshot if they are no longer needed.

• If you enable snapshot archiving on a count-based schedule, the archiving rule applies to all new snapshots that are created and archived by the schedule, and also applies to existing snapshots that were previously created and archived by the schedule.

• If you enable snapshot archiving on an age-based schedule, the archiving rule applies only to new snapshots created after enabling snapshot archiving. Existing snapshots created before enabling snapshot archiving continue to be deleted from their respective storage tiers, according to the schedule set when those snapshots were originally created and archived.

• If you disable snapshot archiving for a count-based schedule, the schedule immediately stops archiving snapshots. Snapshots that were previously archived by the schedule remain in the archive tier and they will not be deleted by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

• If you disable snapshot archiving for an age-based schedule, the snapshots created by the policy and that are scheduled to be archived are permanently deleted at the scheduled archive date and time, as indicated by the aws:dlm:expirationTime system tag.

• If you disable snapshot archiving for a schedule, the schedule immediately stops archiving snapshots. Snapshots that were previously archived by the schedule remain in the archive tier and they will not be deleted by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

• If you modify the archive retention count for a count-based schedule, the new retention count includes existing snapshots that were previously archived by the schedule.

• If you modify the archive retention period for an age-based schedule, the new retention period applies only to snapshots that are archived after modifying the retention rule.

Use one of the following procedures to modify a lifecycle policy.

Console

To modify a lifecycle policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager.

3. Select a lifecycle policy from the list.

4. Choose Actions, Modify Lifecycle Policy.

5. Modify the policy settings as needed. For example, you can modify the schedule, add or remove tags, or enable or disable the policy.

6. Choose Update policy.

Command line

Use the update-lifecycle-policy command to modify the information in a lifecycle policy. To simplify the syntax, this example references a JSON file, policyDetailsUpdated.json, that includes the policy details.

aws dlm update-lifecycle-policy \
    --state DISABLED \
    --execution-role-arn arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole" \
    --policy-details file://policyDetailsUpdated.json

The following is an example of the policyDetailsUpdated.json file.

{
   "ResourceTypes":[
      "VOLUME"
   ],
   "TargetTags":[
      {
         "Key": "costcenter",
         "Value": "120"
      }
   ],
   "Schedules":[
      {
         "Name": "DailySnapshots",
         "TagsToAdd": [
            {
               "Key": "type",
               "Value": "myDailySnapshot"
            }
         ],
         "CreateRule": {
            "Interval": 12,
            "IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
            "Times": [
               "15:00"
            ]
         },
         "RetainRule": {
            "Count" :5
         },
         "CopyTags": false 
      }
   ]
}

To view the updated policy, use the get-lifecycle-policy command. You can see that the state, the value of the tag, the snapshot interval, and the snapshot start time were changed.

Delete lifecycle policies

Considerations for modifying policies

• If you delete a policy, the snapshots or AMIs created by that policy are not automatically deleted. If you no longer need the snapshots or AMIs, you must delete them manually.

• If you delete a policy that has a snapshot archiving-enabled policy, snapshots that are in the archive tier at the time of deleting the policy are no longer managed by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager. You must manually delete the snapshot if they are no longer needed.

• If you delete a policy with an archive-enabled, age-based schedule, the snapshots created by the policy and that are scheduled to be archived are permanently deleted at the scheduled archive date and time, as indicated by the aws:dlm:expirationtime system tag.

Use one of the following procedures to delete a lifecycle policy.

Console

To delete a lifecycle policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager.

3. Select a lifecycle policy from the list.

4. Choose Actions, Delete Lifecycle Policy.

5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Delete Lifecycle Policy.

Command line

Use the delete-lifecycle-policy command to delete a lifecycle policy and free up the target tags specified in the policy for reuse.

Note

You can delete snapshots created only by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

aws dlm delete-lifecycle-policy --policy-id policy-0123456789abcdef0

The Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager API Reference provides descriptions and syntax for each of the actions and data types for the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager Query API.

Alternatively, you can use one of the AWS SDKs to access the API in a way that's tailored to the programming language or platform that you're using. For more information, see AWS SDKs.