How does the Altiris Agent know when to delete a package, or how does it keep track of the time before deletion?

Products

• Management Platform (Formerly known as Notification Server)

Issue/Introduction

 

Resolution

Question
How does the Altiris Agent know when to delete a package?  According to the settings, 'Delete files after' X days, how does the Altiris Agent keep track of that time?

Answer
The details are captured in the AeXSWDPolicy.xml file located at C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Software Delivery\.
There’s a section under any given package that has the following values:
cleanupAfter="10080"
postedExpiry="true"
expiredAt="2008-12-19 09:17:51"

Note:  This setting is automatically provided in NS6 and SMP 7.1.  This is not available in SMP 7.0
 
Expired packages expire the moment a configuration request update provides a config XML that no longer has any task that references the package.  This is starting point for counting down until deletion.  The date is set at that time and then when the cleanupAfter value is reached, the package is deleted.