Managing VDI Sessions

The VDI / Sessions tab allows you to view and manage current VDI sessions. To view the page, navigate to Farm / <Site> / VDI / Sessions.

The Sessions list displays current sessions and includes the following info for each session:

• Guest VM. Guest VM name.
• Session ID. The unique session ID.
• Theme. The Theme used.
• User. The session owner.
• Protocol. Communication protocol.
• State. Session state: Idle, Active, Disconnected.
• Logon time. Last date and time the user logged on.
• Session length. Total sessions duration.
• Idle time. Total (counted) session idle time.
• Type. Session type: Admin, Published Application, Published Desktop.
• Resolution. Client display resolution.
• Color depth. Client display color depth.
• Device name. Client device name.
• IP Address. Client IP address.
• Template. The name of the template used.
• Pool. The name of the guest VM pool.

You can sort the list by any session property. Simply click on a desired column heading to sort the list in ascending or descending order.

You can also filter the list using a single or multiple session properties as criteria. To do so, click the magnifying glass icon (top right) and then type a desired string in a desired column. The list will be filtered as you type.

To manage a session (or multiple sessions at the same time), select one or more sessions and then use the Tasks drop-down menu to choose from the following actions:

• Refresh. Refresh the list.
• Disconnect. Disconnect the selected session(s).
• Log Off. Log off the session(s).
• Send message. Opens the Send Message dialog where you can type and send a message to the session owner(s).
• Remote control. Remotely control the selected user session. See User session remote control below for important information. The local Windows user credentials will be used to establish a connection.
• Remote control (prompt). Same as above but prompts you to enter credentials. Use this option when the local user credentials cannot be used to control a session.
• Show processes. Display and manage running processes. See Managing processes below for details.

User session remote control

The Remote Control and Remote control (prompt) menu options (see above) allow you to shadow a user session. There are limitations as described below:

• Parallels RAS cannot shadow sessions running on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (plain Windows Server 2008 is fine). This doesn't work even with native tools.
• If you need to shadow a user session running on Windows Server 2008, the RAS console must also be running on Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2. This is due to the fact that shadowing is not available on Windows Server 2012 (plan), but is available on Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2. If the RAS console is installed on a later version of Windows Server, shadowing will NOT work. As a workaround, you can add a host running Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 to the Farm, publish the Parallels RAS console from it, and then use the console remotely to manage user sessions running on Windows Server 2008. Please note that to finish a remote control session, the administrator must log off from the RAS console remote session. This is a limitation of the shadow.exe utility from Microsoft that doesn't take any arguments that would allow us to add a control like a bar, a button, or a key combination.

Managing processes

The Tasks > Show processes option opens the Running Processes dialog where you can view running processes for one or more guest VMs.

On the Running Processes dialog, use the Show processes from drop-down menu to filter the list using the following options:

• Selected session. Displays processes for the session selected in the Sessions list.
• Selected server. Displays all running processes for the server on which the selected session is running.
• All servers. Displays all running processes for all available servers.

You can also filter the list by specifying a search criteria for one or more columns. To do so, click the magnifying glass icon (top right) and then type a desired text in one or more columns. The list is filtered as you type to match the specified criteria.

The Tasks drop-down menu in the Running Processes dialog includes the following options:

• Refresh. Refresh the list.
• Kill process. Kill the selected process.
• Go To Published Item. Enabled when you select a process that belongs to a running published resource. Brings up the main Parallels RAS Console window and navigates to the corresponding published resource.
• Disconnect. Disconnect the session.
• Log off. Log off the session.
• Send message. Send a message to the session owner.
• Remote control. Remotely control the selected session.