topic Re: Removing disconnected telnet session? in Operating System - OpenVMS

Removing disconnected telnet session?

Scott Frye_1 — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 13:58:43 GMT

A user just called to say his telnet session terminated without disconnecting him. Can I run a command that would find his connection then run a command that would remove his connection?

Thanks

Scott

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Jan van den Ende — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 15:08:09 GMT

Scott,

Welcome to VMS!!

I think I need some more info, but let me try some guessing.

It looks to me that your terminology somehow does not macth mine.

Is your user logged in using Telnet from some external source, say, a PC, or a *UX session?
Then, if his Telnet terminated, by definition his connection is gone.

Maybe you use a terminal emulator with embedded telnet, and you(r user) logged out of his VMS session? Some emulator then leave the connection alive, and you must terminate it by EXIT (^D, ^Z, ,^C depending on specific emulator).

If your Telnet connection gets broken somehow, than (by default, changeable by system manager) his PROCESS stays alive for some time. In that case, at setting up a new connection for the same username VMS ask if you want to re-attach to that session, and just continue.

If this does not answer your question, please specify some more details:
remote system type
terminal emulator
VMS version
a more extensive description of the issue.
(do not care about terminology, if the description contains enough details we will find out what is happening, and then the terminology will come later on)

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Robert Gezelter — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 20:05:05 GMT

Scott,

The default is for the session to be deleted automatically when the timeouts expire.

It is true that the timeouts can be annoyingly large in a TCP/Ip network, but there is generally not a need to abort a session. If a session hangs, there are generally other (applications) issues involved.

If you can give additional information, then it is easier to be more accurate with advice.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

John Gillings — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 21:47:35 GMT

Scott,

I'd recommend enabling virtual terminals. On Alpha, add the following to your startup procedure:

$ MCR SYSMAN IO CONNECT VTA0/NOADAPT-
/DRIVER=SYS$LOADABLE_IMAGES:SYS$TTDRIVER.EXE
$ DEFINE TCPIP$TELNET_VTA TRUE
$ DEFINE TCPIP$RLOGIN_VTA TRUE

Now when a session is disconnected without logging out, it will remain on the system for (SYSGEN parameter) TTY_TIMEOUT seconds - default is 15 minutes. If a user logs back in within that time, they will be given the option to reconnect to their disconnected session. No more lost work!

You will be able to see the disconnected sessions with:

$ PIPE SHOW USERS/FULL | -
SEARCH SYS$PIPE "(disconnected)"

any process with a VTA terminal name is disconnected. You could kill the process with:

$ STOP/EXIT/ID=pid

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Antoniov. — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 03:13:04 GMT

Scott,
just for curiosity command to kill any process is STOP.
Help is your friend. For furthermore information type
$ HELP STOP

Again, just for playing you can see all users connected (like unix who) with command
$ SHOW USER

Antonio Vigliotti

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Scott Frye_1 — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 08:12:21 GMT

I'm not user what happened to my user, but he said when he went to create a new telnet (using reflections) and VMS asked for his name, he already had a connection up. I've verified he has no connections on his PC. I want to knock his session off. Her is the output from show user

Username Node Interactive Subprocess Batch
4869AK02 HNAC 1 8 1

Thanks for all the GREAT input!!

Scott

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Jan van den Ende — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:26:01 GMT

Scoot,

yes, that looks mightily like the scenario I already guessed.

The symptoms at the users'new session look like:

You have a disconnected session xxxx. Connect to it? [Y/N}

(sorry, not exact systax, this is from memory, cannot test right now).

If the user answers "Y", then (s)he can continue where (s)he was interrupted.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Scott Frye_1 — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:56:24 GMT

OK, but is there a way for me to remove this session using some sort of kill command?

scott

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Dale A. Marcy — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:58:45 GMT

If the /Full qualifier is added to the Show User username, it will give the process ID for the processes owned by username. With privileges, a process can be stopped by:

$ Stop/ID=

Replace with the 8 hexadecimal digits of the process ID that is to be stopped.

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Volker Halle — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 12:01:47 GMT

Scott,

$ SHOW US/FULL

will show all processes from this user. The 3rd column will have the process-id (PID). Then you can stop the process with $ STOP/ID=

Volker.

Re: Removing disconnected telnet session?

Scott Frye_1 — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 12:04:16 GMT

The 'show user /full' command and the 'stop/id=' command was exactly what I needed. I will file these away in my handy dandy tips and tricks document so I will have them always.

Thanks for helping a newbie!

Scott