Monitoring live sessions
This page shows you how to see what is running on DartRelay right now, how to disconnect somebody's session, and how the Sessions page relates to the dashboard, the Seats page and the audit log.
What counts as a session
A few words are used precisely on these pages, so it is worth settling them first:
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Open window | One tab in the portal that is connected to a host: one application, one desktop. Opening the same application twice gives two open windows. |
| Windows session | The signed-in session on the host. Several open windows from the same person on the same host normally share one Windows session; your host settings decide when they do not (see Host session options). |
| Relay Seat | One device with a live session. One device may run as many applications and desktops as it likes, on as many hosts, for one seat. See Licensing and Relay Seats. |
So a person with Word, Excel and a desktop open in one browser has three open windows and holds one seat.
Where to look
| Page | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | At a glance: how many seats are in use and how many windows are open. The figures refresh by themselves. |
| Sessions | Every open window right now, one row each, with a way to disconnect it. This page is the subject of the rest of this guide. |
| System → Seats | Which devices are holding seats, who used them, from which address, and the highest number in use over 30 days. You can release a device's seat here. |
| Authentication → Users, then a user | That person's recent sessions. |
| The audit log | A permanent record of sessions starting and ending and of administrators disconnecting them. See Logs and audit. |
The Sessions page
Open Sessions from the console menu. The page lists every open window, one row per window, and refreshes itself while you watch, so you do not need to reload it. The badge at the top reads N open windows: the number of connected tabs, not the number of people or seats.
Use the rows to answer questions such as "who is still in the payroll application?" before a maintenance window, or "is this person really connected?" when they report a problem.
To see the Sessions page an administrator needs at least View permission on it; to disconnect a session they need Full. Roles are set up in Administrator roles and permissions.
Disconnect a session
Use this when somebody has left a session running on a shared machine, when you need a host empty for maintenance, or when a session appears stuck.
- Open the Sessions page. In the console, open Sessions.
- Find the row. Look for the person and the resource. If they have several windows open, each is its own row.
- Click Kick on that row.
- Check the result. The row disappears from the list. In the person's browser, the tab shows that the session has ended.
What a disconnect does, and does not do:
- The connection ends at once. The person's tab stops showing the application straight away; they are not left looking at a screen that no longer responds.
- The seat is returned once that device has no other live session.
- The session is recorded as ended by an administrator, and the audit log shows who did it. It is never recorded as a time-out, even if it was also very old.
- Programs are not closed. The Windows session on the host is disconnected, not signed out. If the person opens the resource again, they are normally reconnected to the same programs, with any unsaved work still there, unless the host is set to end disconnected sessions after a while or to sign Windows out when the last tab closes.
Disconnecting is not the same as signing the person out of the portal. They can open the resource again straight away. To stop someone using DartRelay, disable their account (Users and groups) or remove their access (Giving people access to resources), then disconnect them.
Disconnecting a whole device
If the aim is to free a seat, the Seats page is the quicker route. System → Seats lists devices rather than windows; Release on a device ends every session on it and returns its seat in one step. Licensing and Relay Seats explains the page and its duplicate-device hints.
How sessions end on their own
Most sessions are never kicked; they end because the person finished. It helps to know all the ways a session can end when you read the audit log or answer "why was I disconnected?":
| How it ended | What happened |
|---|---|
| Closed by the person | They closed the tab, or closed the program inside the session, which closes its tab. |
| Signed out for inactivity | The portal's idle time-out was reached. The browser shows "Signed out after N minutes without activity", and that device's sessions are ended. See Session lifetimes and idle timeout. |
| Never connected | The person pressed launch but the session never reached the host, for example because they closed the tab while it was starting. Its seat is returned automatically within a few minutes. |
| Reached its maximum age | A session has an upper lifetime. In the portal a warning appears shortly before it is reached, then the session ends. |
| Kicked or released | An administrator ended it from the Sessions or Seats page. |
| Server restarted | Sessions that were open when the DartRelay server stopped are closed off in the records when it starts again. |
Example: emptying a host before maintenance
You need to install Windows updates on a host during the lunch hour.
- Post an Announcement in the morning saying the applications on that host will be unavailable from 12:30.
- At 12:30, open Sessions and look for rows on that host.
- For anyone still connected, ask them to save their work, or use Kick on their rows.
- Because a disconnect leaves programs running inside Windows, sign out any remaining disconnected Windows sessions on the host itself (for example in Task Manager, on the Users tab) before you restart it.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | Likely cause and fix |
|---|---|
| The dashboard says 1 seat but Sessions shows 4 open windows | That is correct: one device with four windows open holds one seat. |
| A person was kicked but is back a minute later | Kicking only disconnects. Disable the account or remove the access first if you want to keep them out. |
| After a kick, the person's programs are still open when they come back | Expected: the Windows session was disconnected, not signed out. To have Windows sign out when people leave, see the session settings in Host session options. |
| A person on a shared account sees "Select a session to reconnect to", or their application never appears | Several disconnected Windows sessions have built up for that account on the host. Sign them out on the host once, and review the host's session settings so they do not build up again. See Host session options and Troubleshooting. |
| The Kick button is missing or does nothing | Your administrator role has View but not Full on Sessions. Ask an administrator with full access to change the role. |
| Seats stay in use after everybody has gone home | A session that is disconnected but not ended still holds its Windows session, and therefore its seat, until it ends. Check System → Seats and release devices that are no longer in use. |
Related pages
Licensing and Relay Seats
How seats are counted, and the Seats page.
Session lifetimes and idle timeout
When DartRelay signs people out on its own.
Host session options
One Windows session or several, and what happens when people leave.
Logs and audit
The permanent record of sessions and administrator actions.