Skip to main content
Lifecycle policies in Gcore Object Storage automatically delete objects after a configured number of days, following the AWS S3 lifecycle configuration standard.

​
Lifecycle policy logic

Object removal runs around midnight UTC. Three conditions govern deletion timing:
  1. Lifecycle policy set before upload. If the policy is set for 1 day and the object is uploaded on January 2, it is removed on January 4.
  2. Lifecycle policy set after upload. If an object is uploaded on January 1 (at any time) and a 1-day expiration policy is then applied, the object is deleted on January 3.
  3. Lifecycle policy removed. Deleting the lifecycle policy from the bucket stops automatic removal — objects already in the bucket are kept.

​
Lifecycle configuration elements

AWS CLI uses a JSON configuration file. The file structure is: 
{
  "Rules": [
    {
      "ID": "...",
      "Prefix": "",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Expiration": {
        "Days": ...
      }
    }
  ]
}
FieldDescription
IDUnique rule identifier — up to 255 characters, letters, digits, and underscores.
PrefixLeave empty to apply the rule to the entire bucket; specify a folder name to scope the rule to that folder only.
Status"Enabled" activates the rule; "Disabled" suspends it without deleting it.
Expiration.DaysNumber of days after which objects are automatically deleted.

​
AWS CLI lifecycle management

AWS CLI provides three commands for managing lifecycle policies: put-bucket-lifecycle to apply a policy, get-bucket-lifecycle-configuration to verify it, and delete-bucket-lifecycle to remove it.

​
Applying a lifecycle policy

1

Create the configuration file

Create a lifecycle.json file with the following content:
{
  "Rules": [
    {
      "ID": "one_day",
      "Prefix": "",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Expiration": {
        "Days": 1
      }
    }
  ]
}
ParameterDescription
one_dayRule ID.
"" (empty prefix)The rule applies to the entire bucket.
"Enabled"The rule is active.
1Objects are deleted after 1 day.
To apply the rule to a specific folder, set "Prefix" to the folder name: "Prefix": "deleteme/".
2

Apply the policy

Run the following command from the directory containing lifecycle.json, replacing the placeholder values:
aws s3api put-bucket-lifecycle --bucket my-bucket --lifecycle-configuration file://lifecycle.json --endpoint-url=https://<storage-hostname>
ParameterDescription
my-bucketThe name of the bucket.
<storage-hostname>The storage endpoint hostname from the Details section in the Gcore Customer Portal — all hostnames are listed in S3 URLs.
3

Verify the configuration

Run the following command to check the current lifecycle configuration:
aws s3api get-bucket-lifecycle-configuration --bucket my-bucket --endpoint-url=https://<storage-hostname>
The response contains the applied policy as JSON.

​
Deleting a lifecycle policy

Run the following command to remove the lifecycle policy from the bucket: 
aws s3api delete-bucket-lifecycle --bucket my-bucket --endpoint-url=https://<storage-hostname>
ParameterDescription
my-bucketThe name of the bucket.
<storage-hostname>The storage endpoint hostname.