8.6. Watching Nxclient Users from the FreeNX Server

Problem

You want a central management console to keep an eye on who is logged in to your FreeNX server. You want to be able to terminate sessions, view user histories, and send vitally important messages to users.

Solution

Use /usr/bin/nxserver. You can see who is currently logged in:

	# nxserver --list
	NX> 100 NXSERVER - Version 1.5.0-50 OS (GPL)
	NX> 127 Sessions list:


	Display Username        Remote IP       Session ID
	------- --------------- --------------- --------------------------------
	1003    carla   192.168.1.17    1D0FB6F2759E350067E911D245E9
	1001    pinball 192.168.1.19    64A6BBAE7E9BDD8BC79EE5FCAB
	NX> 999 Bye

View user history:

	# nxserver --history pinball
	NX> 100 NXSERVER - Version 1.5.0-50 OS (GPL)
	NX> 127 Session list:

	Display Username        Remote IP       Session ID Date
	Status
	------- --------------- --------------- -------------------------------- ------------
	------- -----------
	1000    pinball 192.168.1.17   B5870BA4DF456E9126B0561402     2006-12-14 04:25:06
	Finished
	1001    pinball 192.168.1.17   64A6BBAE7E9BDB1C79EE5FCAB      2006-12-18 09:56:12
	Running
	NX> 999 Bye

pinball is being a pain, so you want to kick her off the server. You may terminate a single session, using the session ID:

	# nxserver --terminate 64A6BBAE7E9BDB1C79EE5FCAB

Or, you can knock all of pinball's sessions offline with her username:

	# nxserver --terminate pinball

You may send messages to single users, or to all users:

	# nxserver --send pinball "Save your work, I'm disconnecting you in five seconds"
	# nxserver --broadcast "Save your work, I'm disconnecting you in five seconds and
	then we're going out for treats"

This is a useful command for cleaning up stray sessions leftover after a power outage:

	# nxserver --cleanup

Discussion

This is also useful if you have problems with your own remote FreeNX sessions. For example, if you have logged in from a number of different locations, you can SSH in to the FreeNX server and run the nxserver commands to see how many active sessions you have, and shut them down.

See Also