Lifecycle Policies

S4 supports S3-compatible lifecycle policies for automatic object management. Use lifecycle rules to automatically delete objects after a specified number of days, clean up old versions, or remove expired delete markers.

Supported Rules

Rules can be filtered by key prefix (e.g., apply only to objects under logs/).

Set Lifecycle Configuration

Create a JSON configuration file:

{
  "Rules": [
    {
      "ID": "expire-logs",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Filter": {
        "Prefix": "logs/"
      },
      "Expiration": {
        "Days": 30
      }
    },
    {
      "ID": "cleanup-old-versions",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Filter": {
        "Prefix": ""
      },
      "NoncurrentVersionExpiration": {
        "NoncurrentDays": 90
      }
    }
  ]
}

Apply it to a bucket:

aws s3api put-bucket-lifecycle-configuration \
  --bucket mybucket \
  --lifecycle-configuration file://lifecycle.json \
  --endpoint-url http://localhost:9000

Get Lifecycle Configuration

aws s3api get-bucket-lifecycle-configuration \
  --bucket mybucket \
  --endpoint-url http://localhost:9000

Delete Lifecycle Configuration

aws s3api delete-bucket-lifecycle \
  --bucket mybucket \
  --endpoint-url http://localhost:9000

Background Worker

S4 runs a background lifecycle worker that periodically evaluates rules and deletes expired objects.

Configuration

Dry-Run Mode

Use dry-run mode to test lifecycle rules without actually deleting any data:

export S4_LIFECYCLE_DRY_RUN=true

The worker will log which objects would be deleted, allowing you to verify the rules before enabling actual deletion.

Cluster Mode

Every node runs the worker and expires its own copies of the objects. It takes the buckets of the whole pool and each bucket's rules as the pool keeps them, so a rule set through any node expires objects on every node — also on a node that keeps the bucket's objects but not the bucket itself. Right after an upgrade from an earlier release, until every node of the pool has handed over the configurations it kept on its own (see Federation), a node applies the rules it keeps itself, as the earlier release did, and the pool's rules only to a bucket it keeps none for.

Cluster mode keeps no object versions (Versioning), so rules for noncurrent versions and expired delete markers have no effect there.

Example: Common Configurations

Delete temp files after 7 days

{
  "Rules": [
    {
      "ID": "cleanup-temp",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Filter": { "Prefix": "tmp/" },
      "Expiration": { "Days": 7 }
    }
  ]
}

Keep only 30 days of versions

{
  "Rules": [
    {
      "ID": "expire-old-versions",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Filter": { "Prefix": "" },
      "NoncurrentVersionExpiration": { "NoncurrentDays": 30 }
    }
  ]
}

Combined: expire current + noncurrent + markers

{
  "Rules": [
    {
      "ID": "full-cleanup",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Filter": { "Prefix": "" },
      "Expiration": { "Days": 365 },
      "NoncurrentVersionExpiration": { "NoncurrentDays": 90 },
      "ExpiredObjectDeleteMarker": true
    }
  ]
}