Retain WORM files during litigation using Legal Hold

01/02/2023 Contributors

Beginning with ONTAP 9.3, you can retain Compliance-mode WORM files for the duration of a litigation by using the Legal Hold feature.

What you'll need

You must be a SnapLock administrator to perform this task.

Create a SnapLock administrator account
You must have logged in on a secure connection (SSH, console, or ZAPI).

About this task

A file under a Legal Hold behaves like a WORM file with an indefinite retention period. It is your responsibility to specify when the Legal Hold period ends.

The number of files you can place under a Legal Hold depends on the space available on the volume.

Steps

Start a Legal Hold:

snaplock legal-hold begin -litigation-name litigation_name -volume volume_name -path path_name

The following command starts a Legal Hold for all the files in vol1:
```
cluster1::>snaplock legal-hold begin -litigation-name litigation1 -volume vol1 -path /
```
End a Legal Hold:

snaplock legal-hold end -litigation-name litigation_name -volume volume_name -path path_name

The following command ends a Legal Hold for all the files in vol1:
```
cluster1::>snaplock legal-hold end -litigation-name litigation1 -volume vol1 -path /
```

Retain WORM files during litigation using Legal Hold

Creating your file...