When does Google Nearline delete files via lifecycle management? - google-cloud-storage

Question

TL;DR I want to know if the lifecycle rules I created for Google nearline are correct, but Google Cloud Storage has not deleted the files I think it should in my test, despite waiting a couple of days.
The Longer Version
I'm setting up Google Nearline storage for backups using versioning & I'm trying to manage the saving of old versions. I've read through the documentation on Object Lifecycle Management and I think I understand, but it's not behaving as I expect.
Here's the situation.
Following the examples in the documentation, I set up the lifecycle management to keep 6 versions of files, deleting any that are older than that. Here's the json document I used to set that up:
{
"rule": [
{
"action": {
"type": "Delete"
},
"condition": {
"numNewerVersions": 6
}
}
]
}
I implemented that rule (saved in a file called nearline.json) with
gsutil lifecycle set nearline.json gs://bucket_name
I checked to ensure that the rule was successfully applied with
gsutil lifecycle get gs://bucket_name
and got back {"rule": [{"action": {"type": "Delete"}, "condition": {"numNewerVersions": 6}}]} as a reply - so, it appears the rule was successfully applied.
Next, I set out to test it, by executing the following commands to create a simple test file with multiple revisions:
# append the current unix timestamp to my test file
echo "Date = $(date +%s)" >> test.txt
# send the new revision to nearline
gsutil cp test.txt gs://bucket_name
I did this a total of 10 times.
Next, I checked to see what Google shows in the bucket. Running gsutil ls -la gs://bucket_name gives:
23 2016-10-08T15:59:59Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942400031000 metageneration=1
46 2016-10-08T16:00:09Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942410008000 metageneration=1
69 2016-10-08T16:00:18Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942418466000 metageneration=1
92 2016-10-08T16:00:26Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942426563000 metageneration=1
115 2016-10-08T16:00:38Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942438484000 metageneration=1
138 2016-10-08T16:00:44Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942444562000 metageneration=1
161 2016-10-08T16:00:54Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942454455000 metageneration=1
184 2016-10-08T16:01:06Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942466301000 metageneration=1
207 2016-10-08T16:01:16Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942476052000 metageneration=1
230 2016-10-08T16:01:50Z gs://bucket_name/test.txt#1475942510806000 metageneration=1
So, again, it looks like everything is successful. Except that, instead of seeing only six entries, I see all ten.
I should see six entries because the rule I set up says to delete items with at six or more newer versions. That should include the first four versions in the list above because they all have six ore more newer versions.
Now the documentation does say "if an object meets the conditions for deletion, the object might not be deleted right away", but it has been a couple of days & it hasn't happened. I did find this answer in which it is stated that "there is no guarantee that it will be deleted immediately, but it will usually happen in less than a day".
So, it appears that one of three things is going on:
I just haven't waited long enough
There's something wrong with my lifecycle rule
There's something wrong with the way I'm testing it
Can anyone tell me which of these three it is?

Answer 1

You just need to wait a little longer.
Since the Cloud Storage Nearline is used for data that you do not aspect to access frequently, it probably requires more time in order to apply the livecycle rules than the other Google Cloud Storage options.
"Data you do not expect to access frequently (i.e., no more than once per month). Typically this is backup data for disaster recovery, or so called "cold" storage that is archived and may or may not be needed at some future time."
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/storage-classes