Orphaned Zencache filling up workstation cache folder

  • 7009099
  • 02-Aug-2011
  • 24-Jan-2013

Environment

Novell ZENworks 10 Configuration Management with Support Pack 3 - 10.3 Patch Management
Novell ZENworks Configuration Management 11 Patch Management
Novell ZENworks Patch Management 10
Novell ZENworks Patch Management 11

Situation

Many GUID folders existing in the
C:\Program Folders\Novell\Zenworks\cache\ZenCache
folder
Dates later then 90 Days,  the default setting in ZCC
ZCC / Configuration / Device management / Zen agent cache life and cache orphaning thresholds
14 days and 90 days
This can fill the workstation disk space with old cached patches/bundles

 

Resolution

For 11.x: This is fixed in version 11.2 - see KB 7010044 "ZENworks Configuration Management 11.2 - update information and list of fixes" which can be found at https://www.novell.com/support 
This does not require any registry change.  Content cleanup of orphan content is automatically run as part of maintenance schedule run two hours after startup and every midnight.  The time to keep orphaned content is set in ZCC/Configuration/Device Management/General/Cache orphaning threshold:
 
For 10.3: This is fixed in version 10.3.4 - see KB 7008244 "ZENworks Configuration Management 10.3.4 - update information and list of fixes" which can be found at https://www.novell.com/support 
Two registry settings now control this functionality
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\ZCM,ContentCleanupInterval 
this setting is a string (1,2,14) that is a number indicating the number of days before unreferenced content is deleted.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\ZCM,DoOrphanedContentCleanup
this setting is a string  (true or false) to turn on/off the cleanup of orphaned content.
this setting may be turned on then off occasionally to avoid overhead since it runs as background thread after each device general refresh.
 
 

Additional Information

zmd-messages.log showing the cleanup occuring when the cache days is set to 1:
 
[ZenCache] [] [DeleteOrphans starting] [] []
[ZenCache] [] [Orphaning Threshhold = 1] [] []
[ZenCache] [] [DeleteFiles called for (ContentMgr::Content::2e563e01b723b2fe5d18e0a913a2e910, UserContext{_LocalId=none; _RemoteId=(GlobDownload)})]
 [DeleteFiles returning True in 59 ms] [] []