Tips & Tricks - SpaceGuard SRM

3. Delete Illegal Content

Given that a network administrator has done his/her job properly there shouldn't’t be many places on the corporate network where users can store mp3’s. Two of the most likely places where users will store mp3’s are on their local machine or in their home directory. While many administrators do not focus too much effort on what’s stored on local machines, file server content is a major concern. Mp3’s stored on the file server waste space on the server itself and on server backups.

To help alleviate this concern SpaceGuard SRM can be setup to remove all mp3’s in home directories, and all sub-directories, when a specific quota limit is reached. Using SpaceGuard SRM in concert with a script, which may be downloaded here, provides this functionality.

Use the following procedure to setup mp3 elimination for an existing quota:

This procedure assumes that the SpaceGuard SRM service has been installed to c:\Program Files\SpaceGuard Service, if that is not the case replace the aforementioned path with the actual one wherever it appears in the instructions.

1.) Download the script that deletes the mp3's, if you haven't already, here

2.) Create a directory in the SpaceGuard SRM service directory, c:\Program Files\SpaceGuard SRM, called scripts

3.) Copy the downloaded script to c:\Program Files\SpaceGuard SRM\scripts

4.) Open the SpaceGuard SRM client and choose File/Manage Quota Policies..., the following dialog appears:

5.) Choose the quota policy the delete mp3 action will be added to and choose "Edit," the following dialog appears:

6.) Click "Next," a dialog similar to the following appears:

7.) If you want to add the delete mp3 action to an existing limit choose that limit and click "Edit." This procedure assumes a new limit that deletes mp3s should be created so click "Add," the following dialog appears:

8.) If you want the delete mp3 action to take effect when 100% of the quota is reached click "Add," if not then enter a different value in the "Percentage of quota size:" dialog. A descriptive name for the quota limit may also be entered in the "Name" section. After clicking "Add" SpaceGuard SRM will ask you want type of alarm action should be executed, chose "Command" and click "OK," the following dialog appears:

9.) Enter the following in the "Command line:" section:

c:\progra~1\spaceg~1\scripts\del_mp3.bat %QUOTA_DIRECTORY%

Click "OK," click "Next." You will then be given the option to change the name of the policy, change the name or leave it as is. Upon clicking "Finish" the changes made to the policy are saved.

Please note that it is best practice to setup the delete mp3 action at a high percentage of the total quota. By default the delete mp3 action is only executed when the limit is exceeded. If the delete mp3 action were specified at say 25% of a 100 MB quota a user could fill up their directory with 25 MB of miscellaneous data, then add as many mp3's as they wanted and the mp3's wouldn't be deleted until the the folder size went below 25MB then above again.

However, SpaceGuard SRM can be setup to constantly delete mp3's. To implement this go back to step 9 and do the following after entering the command line: Click the "Options" tab and in the "Repetition" section choose the "Repeat alarm action unlimited times" radio button. Now click "OK." Setting the product up in this manner is NOT recommended, SpaceGuard SRM would constantly be executing a delete command, which may cause unwanted load on the server.

The logic used to build the delete mp3 alarm action can be modified to delete files on any type. To do so just open the script downloaded to the c:\Program Files\SpaceGuard SRM\scripts and change the ".mp3" extension to another extension.

If you have questions please contact support@tools4ever.com.