Data retention
Demerzel keeps evidence, but not forever and not all of it for the same time. Each kind of data has its own clock, set by what it is still useful for. Pruning runs on its own, on every scheduler pass.
| Data | Kept | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Raw agent messages (the envelopes the agent posted, shown in a server’s Data feed tab) | 30 days | Deleted once processed. What they meant — the server’s state, history, metrics and evidence — is kept on the clocks below. |
| Metrics — raw samples | 48 hours | Rolled up into hourly points (min, max, average, 95th percentile) |
| Metrics — hourly | 90 days | Rolled up into daily points |
| Metrics — daily | 2 years | Deleted |
| Reachability probes (the dials made when an agent goes quiet) | 30 days | Deleted |
| Web traffic sample paths and user agents | 30 days | Blanked; the counts stay |
| Web traffic summaries, rule firings, incidents, replays, and the web stack posture history (the latest report is always kept) | 90 days | Deleted |
| What the warden did, fail2ban’s bans, fleet decisions (bans, unbans, protections) | 1 year | Deleted |
| Encrypted backups of everything above (nightly, off-host) | 7 daily, 4 weekly, 6 monthly | Expire; data deleted from Demerzel leaves the backups within 6 months |
Why these numbers
- An IP address is personal data. Access-log summaries are kept only as long as they serve the security of your servers. The most personal parts — the paths an address asked for and the user agent it sent — go first, after 30 days; the counts that remain still tell the story of an incident.
- A block is an act on someone’s traffic. What the warden and fail2ban did, and every fleet decision — including an operator’s unban and the reason given — stays explainable for a year.
- A raw message is transport, not evidence. Once processed, what it meant lives in the server’s projections; the raw envelope stays 30 days so you can see what the agent sent and so a recent processing issue can be re-examined.
- Metrics lose resolution, not history. Minute-level data is only useful for a couple of days; hourly and daily roll-ups keep the trend.
What stays
Everything not listed above — your servers and their history, inventory, Actions and their decisions, notification history, the activity log — stays for as long as your organization exists. Deleting the organization removes all of it at once from Demerzel; its last traces leave the encrypted backups as they expire, within 6 months; see Your data: ownership & deletion.