Question

Weblink 8.2.2, Public Sessions not disconnecting, holding licenses

WebLink

Updated February 12, 2020

asked on October 8, 2014

I have a customer that has a 25 user public portal license for WebLink. This WebLink site is setup to allow public access to a repository using auto-login with a generic Laserfiche WEBLINKUSER account.

Session timeouts set for 20 minutes in IIS7(ASP.Net settings and Application Pool settings)
Session timeout in the Weblink web.config set to 20 minutes
Applied KB 1012655 for disabling the keep alive function
Added the bots and crawlers found in the IIS logs to the web.config
Robots.txt file configured to disallow all bots/crawlers

With all these updates and changes the WEBLINKUSER account does not disconnect out after being inactive. I have to disconnect the sessions on a daily basis as the accounts will indefinitely hold a license and not allow new users to access the repository.

Are there any settings I am missing? Or any fixes available to force the inactive accounts to disconnect?

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Replies

replied on October 9, 2014 • Show version history

Here is a simple VB.Net function using RA that shows how to enumerate through all current sessions on the LF Server and kill those from a given client that have been inactive for a given time.

    Private Sub KillInactiveSessions(ByVal LFServer As String, ByVal ClientName As String, Optional ByVal h As Integer = 0, Optional ByVal m As Integer = 30)
        Try
            ' Create a LF Server object for our server
            Dim mySever As New Server(LFServer)
            ' Get a ServerSessionInfoReader object with all current server sessions
            Dim ssir As ServerSessionInfoReader = mySever.EnumSessions
            ' Process each ServerSession
            For Each si As SessionInfo In ssir
                ' Only process if client application is the one we want
                If si.ApplicationName.ToLower.Contains(ClientName) Then
                    Dim bKill As Boolean = False
                    ' Check the inactive time
                    Dim ts As TimeSpan = Date.Now - si.LastActivity
                    If ts.Hours > h Then
                        ' the inactive hours is over the limit
                        bKill = True
                    ElseIf ts.Hours = h And ts.Minutes >= m Then
                        ' The inactive minutes is equal to or greater than our max
                        bKill = True
                    Else
                        ' the inactive time has not yet been exceeded
                        bKill = False
                    End If
                    ' Only process if bKill is True
                    If bKill Then
                        ' Terminate the inactive session
                        mySever.TerminateSession(si.SessionId)
                    End If
                End If
            Next
            'Dispose of our server object
            mySever.Dispose()
        Catch ex As Exception
            ' Log error here
        End Try
    End Sub

Given a LF Server name of Win2012LF01, to kill weblink connections that have been inactive for more then 45 minutes, you would call it something like this:

KillInactiveSessions("Win2012LF01", "Web Link", 0, 45)

3 0

replied on January 6, 2015

Thomas,

If this is still an issue you might want to also try the following enhancement to see if it alleviates the problem;

https://answers.laserfiche.com/questions/69116/Preventing-False-License-Usage-in-WebLink

I have noticed that we no longer run out of licenses nor see any odd behaviors like the one you are having since implementing this code change.

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replied on October 8, 2014

Go through your IIS Logs and see if "TestSession.aspx" or "SessionKeepAlive.aspx" is being accessed by a crawler/bot. These two files have been known to keep a session going even after the 20 minute timeout has long passed. Please note that although you did configure your Robots.txt file to disallow all bots/crawlers most will ignore this.

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replied on October 13, 2014

The only true workaround at this point with this issue (and I have been dealing with it for years) is to to turn off the "Auto Login" feature. The way the application is designed and licensed means there will never be a fool proof way of preventing bots/spiders from consuming all of the licenses. At this point Laserfiche must decide if WebLink is a internet application or a desktop application since it's trying to make WebLink behave like both at the same time.

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replied on February 12, 2020

Six years later and this is still true.

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replied on October 8, 2014

I went through 5 days of IIS Logs and did not find any instances of "TestSession.aspx" or "SessionKeepAlive.aspx". These 5 days were after I made the changes in the initial post.

I'm aware that the robots.txt can/will be ignored but I figured I would cover my bases just in case.

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replied on October 9, 2014

I have a customer that was fighting this same battle. Ever since they upgraded to WebLink 8.x, they have had issues with bots tying up all the WebLink licenses. To provide my customer with a workaround, I created a console utility that they run as a scheduled task to kill any weblink connection that has been inactive for over a given time. If you are interested in this type of solution, contact me at

bwarren@paperfreetech.com

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replied on October 13, 2014

In speaking with my manager, we would like a solution from Laserfiche as the client does not have the SDK and we are currently not licensed for VB. Any input from a Laserfiche tech would be appreciated.

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replied on December 15, 2014

Has anyone tried making this change in WebLink's DocView.aspx?

I think I am going to try it.

https://support.laserfiche.com/KB/1012655

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replied on December 15, 2014

I just tried the change to DocView.aspx. It's simple and it works like a charm.

I highly recommend it.

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replied on December 15, 2014

Howard,

I tried that KB(it's in the original post). It has not yielded any positive results on my setup.

Thank you though!

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replied on February 12, 2020

Also doesn't not appear to work in version 10.

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Weblink 8.2.2, Public Sessions not disconnecting, holding licenses

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