# ILM Policies Disappear

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** ilm-index-lifecycle-management\
**Created:** [May 17, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181 "2021-05-17T13:45:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SKRYMr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@SKRYMr](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/SKRYMr)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181/1 "2021-05-17T13:45:11Z")

</div>

Hello, this is a weird one because there's no way for us to tie this to any specific event but it seems that a custom ILM policy and also the relative index template that we define for some of our indices disappear after some time.  
If it's of any help, the index template was named ".history\_template" and the ILM policy ".history\_policy", might it have been because they start with a dot they are managed by the system and possibly deleted?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2021, 11:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181/2 "2021-05-17T23:03:52Z")

</div>

Items with a dot at the start of the name are usually considered system managed things, yes.  
I am not sure if that means they will be deleted automatically.

Can you try it without the dot?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SKRYMr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@SKRYMr](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/SKRYMr)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181/3 "2021-05-18T13:12:15Z")

</div>

I re-created them without the dot this time and will keep an eye on things to see if they get deleted once again. As a matter of fact we have some other templates and policies that are basically identical and are working correctly hence my assumption regarding the dot.  
It still seems weird to me that they would get deleted just like that though, might be worth checking out and maybe mentioning in the docs if that's the case.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 1:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181/4 "2021-05-19T01:06:10Z")

</div>

Is there anything in your Elasticsearch logs that refer to these?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SKRYMr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@SKRYMr](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/SKRYMr)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 8:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181/5 "2021-05-19T08:04:24Z")

</div>

I tried to look but couldn't find anything, but we don't hold onto Elastic logs for long and the indices affected haven't rolled over since February (they should roll monthly) so we probably didn't notice when it happened and the logs are gone.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 8:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policies-disappear/273181/6 "2021-06-16T08:04:52Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.