I believe you have it reversed.

With a retainextra of 32 and a verexists of no limit you would keep 32
versions of an active file forever. The 33rd version of the file would be
expired.
The same with retainonly and verdeleted. You would keep all 32 versions of
the active file when it was deleted forever.

To do a point in time restore you should set retainextra to no limit and
verexistst to how many days you want to keep.
Same with retainonly and and verdeleted. Set verdeleted to no limit and
retainonly to the number of days you want to keep.

Mark


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan R. White [SMTP:arw AT TIPPER.DEMON.CO DOT UK]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 5:50 AM
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      Expiration if inactive versions of deleted files
>
> I'm getting wound up in knots trying to figure this out, sanity check
> required - hope someone can help.
>
> A backup copygroup specifies retention by time period to e.g. 32 days
> (RETEXTRA=32). To ensure the ability to perform a point in time restore at
> any point in the previous 32 days the number of inactive versions to
> retain must be set to NOLIMIT just in case multiple backups per day happen
> (VEREXISTS=NOLIMIT).
>
> The copygroup then specifies that the last version of a file must be kept
> for a year if the file is deleted (RETONLY=366).
> The retain inactive versions is also set to NOLIMIT so that if a file is
> deleted by accident and not reported until the next day it can be restored
> and no loss of backup versions happens (VERDELETED=NOLIMIT).
>
> OK, the question is when do the inactive versions of a file get expired in
> this case? Is it after the 32 days or after the year?
>
> My understanding of the VERDELETED parameter is that it is used when a
> backup discovers a file has been deleted and then it immediately marks any
> versions greater than this number of expiration. Then the RETEXTRA and
> RETONLY parameters define what happens in future expiration runs. My
> expectation from this setup is that
>
> 1/ when a file is noted as deleted by the backup nothing will get marked
> for expiration
> 2/ over the next 32 days we should lose all versions in excess of 32 days
> old
> 3/ the last version will be kept for 366 days from time of being marked
> inactive.
>
> Is this right?
>
> Thanks
> Alan
>