How to use the VShell^® Who.exe --kill command to disconnect an active session

The Who.exe command-line utility included with VShell server for Windows installations provides information about the current active connections to the server. As of VShell 3.5, Who.exe also offers the ability to disconnect an active session. This tip explains the workings of the --kill function. The --kill option is restricted to users with administrator privileges.

The Who.exe command-line utility displays the username, session-id, date and time of the initial connection, and the IP address or hostname of the client machine.

Figure 1: Example output from Who.exe

To disconnect a session using the --kill function, first run Who.exe with no arguments. This will give you the session -id of the connection you want to terminate.

Next, run Who.exe with the --kill command-line option combined with the session -id to be terminated.

The following example shows the complete syntax to kill Bob's SSH2 session from the example in the above screen shot:

Who.exe --kill ssh2:7

The new --kill functionality applies to both VShell SSH2/SFTP and VShell FTPS connections. If both services are running, there is a possibility that the same session-id exists for both an SSH2/SFTP and FTPS connection. If this is the case, then the session-id must be prepended with either "ssh2:" or "ftps:" so the correct session is disconnected.

Figure 2: Example syntax for Who.exe --kill command-line option

If you have any questions about using Who.exe or the --kill command-line option, contact VanDyke Software Support.