Monitor Terminal Server connections

Steveo · Post by **Steveo** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 1:47 pm

Can HM be used to check if someone is logged into a server or Terminal Server connection?

We have PC's running time clock software in remote locations. They connect through Terminal Server over an Internet VPN.
We are monitoring the VPN and pinging the time clock PC. Our problem is that the software on the PC does not always reconnect when the VPN comes back up. We have cases where the VPN is down for 2 min. but they think the Time Clock is down for 2 hours. We see that the VPN and clock are responding an assume that everything is back online.
What we need to be able to monitor is their connection to the Terminal server.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Steveo on 2003-04-10 15:01 ]</font>

mpriess · Post by **mpriess** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 4:12 pm

This can be done using the Termianal Services performance counters.

Steveo · Post by **Steveo** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 6:21 am

Thank you for the reply. OK Performance Counters are from SNMP? and I need to know the OID? of the information that I want to check??

I won't bother you with questions that will show that I am in over my head. I will get some outside help.

Thank You.

mpriess · Post by **mpriess** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 7:51 am

Open up performance monitor and look for the Terminal services category. There should be a counter called 'Total Sessions'.

KS-Soft · Post by **KS-Soft** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 12:43 pm

>OK Performance Counters are from SNMP

No, HostMonitor has test called "Performance Counter". Its not related to SNMP.

Regards
Alex

Steveo · Post by **Steveo** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 11:21 am

Thanx Alex. My copy was a few reversions old. I now see the performance counters. This might work if the number of connections does not change, unfortunately, we have other sessions that are logging in to this same server. I really need to query a specific user ID to see if they are connected.
I guess a third party program that would output a list of connected users to a text file and then have HM monitor this file through script or external program for the user being checked.
While I am wishing.... I would want the configuration to only notify me if the user does not login within x minutes of when their connection goes live again. I might need to dust off my copy of winbatch.

KS-Soft · Post by **KS-Soft** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 2:25 pm

>I really need to query a specific user ID to see if they are connected.

I am not sure about Windows XP but Windows NT 4 and W2K don't have any documented method to check is user logged in or not

Probably Terminal Service provides some API, I will try to find information...

Regards
Alex

agressiv · Post by **agressiv** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 12:45 pm

There are some command-line utilities to get the current logged in users:

http://www.clusteresis.com/itm00006.htm

I use tsquery, but you'll have to put the output in a flat file and do like a regexp or sed on it to see if the user in question is there. Performance counters only relay connection count, not actual users.

There might be a few other ways you can script it, but nothing with a really easy solution. You are better off enabling auditing with the security event log and then doing an event log monitor for that user.

Greg