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WTS Sessions Plug-In - technical Reference

Introduction

The WTS Sessions plug-in provides a view of the current processes running on the machine, which stem from a remote login. This view is updated in real-time and can be configured to display an additional set of metrics to monitor, and also shows a summary of the current sessions at the top of the view. The Geneos Rule Manager can then be used to set up a rule that would change state and trigger an event when these metrics rise above a set level.

Views (for a single view)

View

wts_sessions_image2

Headline Legend

Name Description
activeSessions The number of active sessions on the Terminal Server.
disconnectedSessions The number of disconnected sessions on the Terminal Server.
idleSessions The number of idle sessions on the Terminal Server.
listeningSessions The number of listening sessions on the Terminal Server.

Table Legend

Name Description
SessionID The session identifier as used by Windows Terminal Server.
SessionState The current state of the session.
UserName The name of the user logged in for the session.
ClientID The client identifier, typically showing the transport method used for the connection.
ClientIP The IP address of the remote client, or "Local" if the session is connecting from the same machine as the server.
% Processor Time The percentage processor time that the session is consuming.
<user defined> Other columns as specified in the sampler manager, using the "Counters" parameter.

Actions

View Processes

When selected, the View Processes context-menu option will display a summary window detailing all the processes running for this particular session. The headings displayed in this summary include the following by default:

  • ProcessName
  • ProcessID
  • Creating Process ID
  • % Processor Time
  • % User Time
  • % Privileged Time
  • Page Faults/sec
  • Working Set

If a WTS Processes plug-in is running, then the headings displayed will show the first three headings above, followed by any user specified headings the WTS Processes plug-in is configured with.

Examples of this functionality are shown below:

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Send Message

When selected, the Send Message context-menu option will bring up a dialog asking the user to type in the message to send. After the message is typed, clicking "OK" will send the message to the user machine, where it appears as a standard Windows message dialog. Clicking "Cancel" will of course cancel this operation.

The title of this dialog defaults to "Admin Message", but can be configured with the parameter messageTitle.

Examples of this functionality are shown below:

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Logoff Session

When selected, the Logoff Session context-menu option will bring up a dialog asking the user to confirm the logoff. Clicking "OK" will then instruct Windows Terminal Server to end this session, logging off the user and then terminating all running processes. As such, it is recommended that for active sessions the user first use the "Send Message" menu option to send prior warning to give the remote user a chance to save their work. Clicking "Cancel" on the confirmation dialog will cancel this operation.

After this operation is selected, the view will be automatically refreshed. The recently closed session will typically have a state displayed as "Down" to indicate that this session is no longer in operation, but is still in the process of being cleared up.

Examples of this functionality are shown below:

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Ping

When selected pings a client logged on to the terminal server. Right click their name and select ping.

Examples of this functionality are shown below:

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Traceroute

When selected traces the route to a client logged on to the terminal server. Right click their name and select traceroute.

Examples of this functionality are shown below:

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Event Logging

Event logging is switched on by default and captures all events; this includes Logons, Logoffs, active, disconnected and other states. The states are only monitored after the first sample. It is possible to disable event logging by setting disableEvents to true.

Examples of this functionality are shown below:

wts_sessions_image13

Plug-In Configuration

The Netprobe that contains this plug-in is called netprobent+wrs. It must run on a Windows machine running the Windows Terminal Services service and the Terminal Services Session performance counters are enabled.

The following parameters can be configured for this plug-in:

counters

This section contains configuration about counters.

Mandatory: No

counters > counter

A list of metrics to monitor for each process. These will be added to the view as columns at the right-hand side.

Possible values:

Setting
% User Time
% Privileged Time
Virtual Bytes Peak
Virtual Bytes
Page Faults/sec
Working Set Peak
Working Set
Page File Bytes Peak
Page File Bytes
Private Bytes
Thread Count
Pool Paged Bytes
Pool Nonpaged Bytes
Handle Count
Input WdBytes
Input WdFrames
Input WaitForOutBuf
Input Frames
Input Bytes
Input Compressed Bytes
Input Compress Flushes
Input Errors
Input Timeouts
Input Async Frame Error
Input Async Overrun
Input Async Overflow
Input Async Parity Error
Input Transport Errors
Output WdBytes
Output WdFrames
Output WaitForOutBuf
Output Frames
Output Bytes
Output Compressed Bytes
Output Compress Flushes
Output Errors
Output Timeouts
Output Async Frame Error
Output Async Overrun
Output Async Overflow
Output Async Parity Error
Output Transport Errors
Total WdBytes
Total WdFrames
Total WaitForOutBuf
Total Frames
Total Bytes*
Total Compressed Bytes
Total Compress Flushes
Total Errors
Total Timeouts
Total Async Frame Error
Total Async Overrun
Total Async Overflow
Total Async Parity Error
Total Transport Errors
Total Protocol Cache Reads
Total Protocol Cache Hits
Total Protocol Cache Hit Ratio
Protocol Bitmap Cache Reads
Protocol Bitmap Cache Hits
Protocol Bitmap Cache Hit Ratio
Protocol Glyph Cache Reads
Protocol Glyph Cache Hits
Protocol Glyph Cache Hit Ratio
Protocol Brush Cache Reads
Protocol Brush Cache Hits
Protocol Brush Cache Hit Ratio
Protocol Save Screen Bitmap Cache Reads
Protocol Save Screen Bitmap Cache Hits
Protocol Save Screen Bitmap Cache Hit Ratio
Input Compression Ratio
Output Compression Ratio
Total Compression Ratio

Mandatory: No
Default: % User Time,% Privileged Time,Page Faults/sec,Working Set,Input Bytes

messageTitle

A string specifying the text to be displayed in the title-bar of a message sent to a remote user.

Mandatory: No
Default: Admin Message

disableEvents

Disables the events logons, logoffs, active, disconnected and other states.

Mandatory: No
Default: false