Server expiration

Cloud Management Platform (CMP) supports expiring servers and resources, and configuring what happens upon expiration

  3 minute read  

A server or resource is marked for expiration using the Expiration Date parameter.

Server expiration is a recurring job (Admin > Recurring Jobs > Expire Servers). By default, the job runs each day at midnight.

The job runs the Expire Servers action, which spawns a job and executes any enabled Expire actions.

How expiration works

To indicate that a server should expire on a particular date, it must have an Expiration Date value. This can be provided during provisioning, as described in Order Form Customization, or added to a server via the Parameters tab.

CMP administrators can check for expired servers manually or on a schedule.

Create expiration actions

Each expiration behavior is a CloudBolt plugin that you add as an orchestration action. Create the actions you need, then enable them in the sections that follow.

To create an expiration action:

  1. Go to Admin > Orchestration Actions.
  2. In the left panel, expand the Section and select the Subsection listed for the action in the table below.
  3. In the right panel, select the subsection’s add button, Add Post Sync VMs Action or Add Post-Expire Server Action, then select CloudBolt Plug-in > Add a new CloudBolt plug-in.
  4. In the form, set Name to the action name from the table.
  5. Under File location, select Fetch from URL, then copy the link to the plugin file from the table and paste it.
  6. Select Create.

Screenshot of the Orchestration Actions page.

Section Subsection Action name Plugin file
Synchronize VMs from Resource Handlers Post Sync VMs Set Server Expiration Date set_server_expiration.py
Expire Post-Expire Server Power Off Expired Servers power_off_expired_servers.py
Expire Post-Expire Server Power Off Then Delete Expired Servers power_off_then_delete_expired_servers.py

Set a server expiration date

  1. Go to Admin > Orchestration Actions.

  2. In the left panel, expand Synchronize VMs from Resource Handlers and select Post Sync VMs.

  3. In the right panel, set Set Server Expiration Date to Enabled.

  4. Select the Edit icon.

  5. Under Default value for Days Before Expire, provide a positive integer.

    This is the number of days after today that servers are set to expire.

  6. Select Save.

Power off expired servers

  1. Go to Admin > Orchestration Actions.
  2. In the left panel, expand Expire and select Post-Expire Server.
  3. In the right panel, set Power Off Expired Servers to Enabled.

Delete expired servers

  1. Go to Admin > Orchestration Actions.
  2. In the left panel, expand Expire and select Post-Expire Server.
  3. In the right panel, set Power Off Then Delete Expired Servers to Enabled.
  4. Select the Edit icon.
  5. Set Default value for Cb Hostname to an appropriate value.
  6. Set Default value for Days Before Delete to a positive integer.
  7. Set Default value for Days Before Poweroff to a positive integer.
  8. Select Save.

Inform owners about expired servers

  1. Go to Admin > Orchestration Actions.
  2. In the left panel, expand Expire and select Pre-Expire Server.
  3. In the right panel, set Email Owners of Expired Servers to Enabled.

Check for expired servers

  1. Go to Admin > Recurring Jobs and search for Expire Servers.
  2. Set to Enabled to run automatically on schedule, or select Run to run the job immediately.

Screenshot of the Expire Servers job on the Recurring Jobs page.