Schedule Auto-deletion of unessential Unreachable hosts

Manually deleting entries of unessential hosts (Connection status=Unreachable) from the Xprotect instance can be cumbersome. This is especially true if the instance has cloud-based hosts added as part of Adaptive Scaling features on third-party clouds such as AWS and Azure. Leaving these entries on the Hosts page on the UI can lead to a lot of clutter.

Use the Auto-delete feature in Xprotect to schedule auto-deletion of unessential Unreachable hosts. The Auto-delete feature runs background jobs to identify unessential hosts by tags assigned to them after finding them Unreachable for a specific time duration. You can configure the frequency at which these jobs must run.

You must specify the following to enable the Auto-delete feature:

Auto-delete tags - a list of 'include' tags and 'exclude' tags of the hosts whose entries must be deleted when delete jobs are run. Xprotect retains the hosts with the 'exclude' tags, even though they are tagged with the 'include' tags.
Auto-delete duration - selected Unreachable host entries (with 'include' tags, but not 'exclude' tags) are deleted after this time duration when delete jobs are run. The default is 14 days. The minimum allowed duration is Zero and the maximum allowed duration is 30 days.
Auto-delete rule - an Auto-delete rule is a combination of One or more Auto-delete tags and the Auto-delete duration. You can create multiple Auto-delete rules for an instance.
Auto-delete frequency - the frequency at which the jobs for the Auto-delete rules must run. By design, the job runs once every day at 12 AM GMT. The default frequency is One day. You can set this frequency for up to 30 days. This is a global setting for all Auto-delete rules.

Auto-delete for auto-scaled down cloud hosts

For cloud-based hosts added as part of Adaptive Scaling features (such as Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling on AWS), you must assign the 'include' tags in their Auto-scale configuration. For example, in the Auto Scale Configuration of the AWS Auto Scale Groups. Add Auto-delete rules with the same 'include' tags. When auto-scaled down hosts go Unreachable, Xprotect deletes these host entries by the rules and the Auto-delete frequency.

Auto-delete for hosts added to the instance for a short duration or experimental purposes

For cloud-based or non-cloud-based hosts added as part of Adaptive Scaling features, tag the hosts with both the 'include' and 'exclude' tags from the Xprotect UI. This gives you the flexibility to Auto-delete hosts in a phased manner and/or retain some hosts even though they are Unreachable for long periods. Modify Auto-delete rules to remove 'exclude' tags to delete the host entries when you don't need them anymore.

Auto-delete for such hosts only deletes the entries of the hosts from the Hosts page. The Xprotect agents still reside on the hosts.

Add Auto-delete rules

You can add multiple Auto-delete rules for an instance. The jobs for the rules are run independently. So, if you add an 'include' tag for a rule (rule1) as an 'exclude' tag in another rule (rule2), Xprotect auto-deletes the host when it runs the job for rule1.

Go to Settings > Configurations.
In the Auto Delete Unreachable Hosts tile on the right, add a new delete rule.
Click Add New Rule.
Click Add New in the Delete Hosts with Tags tile and select the 'delete' tags.
Click Add New in the But Exclude Hosts with Below Tags tile and select the 'exclude' tags.
From the Delete Hosts After the drop-down list, specify the time after which entries of the Unreachable hosts must be deleted.
Click Save.

When you save rules, the rules are listed in the lower half of the Auto Delete Unreachable Hosts tile.

Set Auto-delete job frequency

Decide upon an Auto-delete frequency that is suitable for all the delete rules you add. If you have multiple Auto-delete rules, the jobs for all the rules run at the same frequency at 12 AM GMT.

On the Settings > Configurations page, click Frequency.
Select how frequently the delete jobs must run.

For example, select 1 to run the delete jobs every day at 12 AM GMT. Select 5 to run the delete jobs once every 5 days at 12 AM GMT.
Click Save.

Example

See this example to understand how this feature works with the following values.

'Include' tags - Santa Clara
'Exclude' tags - London
Auto-delete duration - 1 day
Auto-delete frequency - 2 days

When the delete jobs run once every 2 days, all entries of hosts tagged with 'Santa Clara' and not tagged with 'London', that have been Unreachable for more than One day are deleted from the Hosts page.

Modify or delete Auto-delete rules

Modify Auto-delete rules when you want to add or delete 'include' and 'exclude' tags for the rules or when you want to change the Auto-delete duration. Rule modifications take effect immediately after you modify and save the rule.

To modify a rule, expand the rule and make changes.

Delete Auto-delete rules when you no longer need them.

To delete a rule, click the 3-dot menu of the rule and click Delete.