Ray,

There are 3 relevant mss commands:

mstouch (update files, i.e., reset their time to purge)
msretention (set the retention period in number of days)
msrecover (recover files that have been moved to /trash/ROBLE prior to deletion)

All of these commands can take awhile (maybe a few minutes), especially
when using wild-cards, so sometimes I put them in background. When
executing, you can see them in the mss queue with the command "dcsq".
You can execute these command on either CISL machines or at HAO, but
I think they are somewhat faster on CISL machines.

The default retention period for tgcm model history files is one year.
When the retention period has passed (and the files have not been read
during the retention period), you are notified by email.  

Use the mstouch command to update the files, i.e., reset the purge
clock, for example, to touch all sy3j files:

mstouch /ROBLE/timegcm1.2/sy3j\*.nc

However, if the files are referenced (read by anyone), before the 
retention period is up, the file is updated as if an mstouch had been 
used.

To change the retention time, use msretention. E.g., to set the
retention period up to 10 years:

msretention -pe 3650 -wpwd NCARTGCM /ROBLE/timegcm1.2/sy3j\*.nc

I have done this w/ several of your timegcm1.2 runs (most of the
runs that are on /aim/d/tgcm). BTW, I think that an msretention
command automatically resets the purge clock as if an mstouch had
been done, so you don't have to follow msretention w/ mstouch.

Note the write password is necessary for the msretention command
on tgcm history files.
If you get a incorrect password error anyway, its probably because 
the file was disposed manually without the password. In this case
just retry the command (for that file(s)) without the -wpwd option.

If the files are not updated after the retention period is up, they 
are moved to /trash/ROBLE, and will be actually deleted sometime later
(I think the grace period is 30 days).
To see which, if any, files have been moved to /trash/ROBLE where
they are scheduled for deletion, use "Msls /trash/ROBLE". Use the
msrecover command to restore these files to their original paths. 
There are some sy5j files there now, so you could do this:

msrecover /trash/ROBLE/timegcm1.2/sy5j\*

You can get man pages for any of the commands, e.g., "man mstouch",
or to save the man page in a file, use: "man mstouch | col -bp >! mstouch.man".

To get a listing showing the retention period, use msls -p, e.g.:
msls -p /ROBLE/timegcm1.2/sy5j\*
To get a listing showing the purge date, use msls -P.
To save the listing to a file: "msls -p /ROBLE/timegcm1.2/sy5j\* >! sy5j.msls".

There is a very good CISL user reference for the mss at:
http://www.cisl.ucar.edu/mss/dcs4/current-html/index.html

--Ben