Archiving transfers data from SPS to an external storage solution. Archived data can be accessed and searched, but cannot be restored (moved back) to the SPS appliance. Only those closed audit-trail files are archived where the retention time has already elapsed.

To configure archiving, you first have to create an archive policy. Archive policies define the retention time, the address of the remote backup server, which protocol to use to access it, and other parameters. SPS can be configured to use the SMB/CIFS and NFS protocols to access the archive server:

• To configure archiving using SMB/CIFS, see Creating an archive policy using SMB/CIFS.

• To configure archiving using NFS, see Creating an archive policy using NFS.

Caution: Hazard of data loss Never delete an Archive Policy if data has been archived with it. This will make the already archived data inaccessible. Do not "remake" an Archive Policy (that is, deleting an Archive Policy and then creating another one with the same name but different parameters). This will make data inaccessible, and identifying the root cause of the issue complicated. If you want to change the connection parameters (that is when you perform a storage server migration), you must make sure that the share contents and file permissions are kept unmodified and there are no archiving or backup tasks running. On the other hand, if you want to add a new network share to your archives, proceed with the following steps: Create a new empty SMB/NFS network share. Create a new Archive Policy that points to this network share. Modify your Connection Policy(es) to archive using the newly defined Archive Policy. Make sure to leave the existing Archive Policy unmodified. It is also safe to extend the size of the network share on the server side.

The different protocols assign different file ownerships to the files saved on the remote server. The owners of the archives created using the different protocols are the following:

• SMB/CIFS: The user provided on the web interface.

• NFS: root with no-root-squash, nobody otherwise.

Caution: SPS cannot modify the ownership of a file that already exists on the remote server.

Once you have configured an archive policy, assign it to the connection you want to archive. For details, see Archiving the collected data.

Data about archived connections can be automatically deleted from the connection database. For details, see Configuring cleanup policies.