Powershell Log Off Remote Session

Question

I am trying to formulate a Powershell command to remotely log off a user. We have a terminal server with a very unstable program that sometimes locks sessions. We have to re

Answer 1

This is oldschool and predates PowerShell, but I have used the qwinsta / rwinsta combo for YEARS to remotely log off stale RDP sessions. It's built in on at least Windows XP and forward (possibly earlier)

Determine the session ID:

qwinsta /SERVER:<NAME>

Remove the session in question:

rwinsta <SESSION_ID> /SERVER:<NAME>

Answer 2

Below script will work well for both active and disconnected sessions as long as user has access to run logoff command remotely. All you have to do is change the servername from "YourServerName" on 4th line.

param (
    $queryResults = $null,
    [string]$UserName = $env:USERNAME,
    [string]$ServerName = "YourServerName"
)


if (Test-Connection $ServerName -Count 1 -Quiet) {  
    Write-Host "`n`n`n$ServerName is online!" -BackgroundColor Green -ForegroundColor Black


    Write-Host ("`nQuerying Server: `"$ServerName`" for disconnected sessions under UserName: `"" + $UserName.ToUpper() + "`"...") -BackgroundColor Gray -ForegroundColor Black

        query user $UserName /server:$ServerName 2>&1 | foreach {  

            if ($_ -match "Active") {
                Write-Host "Active Sessions"
                $queryResults = ("`n$ServerName," + (($_.trim() -replace ' {2,}', ','))) | ConvertFrom-Csv -Delimiter "," -Header "ServerName","UserName","SessionName","SessionID","CurrentState","IdealTime","LogonTime"


                $queryResults | ft
                Write-Host "Starting logoff procedure..." -BackgroundColor Gray -ForegroundColor Black

                $queryResults | foreach {
                    $Sessionl = $_.SessionID
                    $Serverl = $_.ServerName
                    Write-Host "Logging off"$_.username"from $serverl..." -ForegroundColor black -BackgroundColor Gray
                    sleep 2
                    logoff $Sessionl /server:$Serverl /v

                }


            }                
            elseif ($_ -match "Disc") {
                Write-Host "Disconnected Sessions"
                $queryResults = ("`n$ServerName," + (($_.trim() -replace ' {2,}', ','))) |  ConvertFrom-Csv -Delimiter "," -Header "ServerName","UserName","SessionID","CurrentState","IdealTime","LogonTime"

                $queryResults | ft
                Write-Host "Starting logoff procedure..." -BackgroundColor Gray -ForegroundColor Black

                $queryResults | foreach {
                    $Sessionl = $_.SessionID
                    $Serverl = $_.ServerName
                    Write-Host "Logging off"$_.username"from $serverl..."
                    sleep 2
                    logoff $Sessionl /server:$Serverl /v

                }
            }
            elseif ($_ -match "The RPC server is unavailable") {

                Write-Host "Unable to query the $ServerName, check for firewall settings on $ServerName!" -ForegroundColor White -BackgroundColor Red
            }
            elseif ($_ -match "No User exists for") {Write-Host "No user session exists"}

    }
}
else {

    Write-Host "`n`n`n$ServerName is Offline!" -BackgroundColor red -ForegroundColor white
    Write-Host "Error: Unable to connect to $ServerName!" -BackgroundColor red -ForegroundColor white
    Write-Host "Either the $ServerName is down or check for firewall settings on server $ServerName!" -BackgroundColor Yellow -ForegroundColor black
}





Read-Host "`n`nScript execution finished, press enter to exit!"

Some sample outputs. For active session:

For disconnected sessions:

if no sessions found: Check out this solution as well to query all AD servers for your username and logoff only disconnected sessions. The script will also tell you if there were error connecting or querying the server.

Powershell to find out disconnected RDP session and log off at the same time

Answer 3

Log off all users from a machine:

try {
   query user /server:$SERVER 2>&1 | select -skip 1 | foreach {
     logoff ($_ -split "\s+")[-6] /server:$SERVER
   }
}
catch {}

Details:

• the try/catch is used when there are no users are on the server, and the query returns an error. however, you could drop the 2>&1 part, and remove the try/catch if you don't mind seeing the error string
• select -skip 1 removes the header line
• the inner foreach logs off each user
• ($_ -split "\s+") splits the string to an array with just text items
• [-6] index gets session ID and is the 6th string counting from the reverse of the array, you need to do this because the query output will have either 8 or 9 elements depending if the users connected or disconnected from the terminal session

Answer 4

I've modified Casey's answer to only logoff disconnected sessions by doing the following:

   foreach($Server in $Servers) {
    try {
        query user /server:$Server 2>&1 | select -skip 1 | ? {($_ -split "\s+")[-5] -eq 'Disc'} | % {logoff ($_ -split "\s+")[-6] /server:$Server /V}
    }
    catch {}
    }

Answer 5

I am sure my code will be easier and works faster.

    $logon_sessions = get-process -includeusername | Select-Object -Unique -Property UserName, si | ? { $_ -match "server" -and $_ -notmatch "admin" }

    foreach ($id in $logon_sessions.si) {
        logoff $id
    }

Answer 6

Here's a great scripted solution for logging people out remotely or locally. I'm using qwinsta to get session information and building an array out of the given output. This makes it really easy to iterate through each entry and log out only the actual users, and not the system or RDP listener itself which usually just throws an access denied error anyway.

$serverName = "Name of server here OR localhost"
$sessions = qwinsta /server $serverName| ?{ $_ -notmatch '^ SESSIONNAME' } | %{
$item = "" | Select "Active", "SessionName", "Username", "Id", "State", "Type", "Device"
$item.Active = $_.Substring(0,1) -match '>'
$item.SessionName = $_.Substring(1,18).Trim()
$item.Username = $_.Substring(19,20).Trim()
$item.Id = $_.Substring(39,9).Trim()
$item.State = $_.Substring(48,8).Trim()
$item.Type = $_.Substring(56,12).Trim()
$item.Device = $_.Substring(68).Trim()
$item
} 

foreach ($session in $sessions){
    if ($session.Username -ne "" -or $session.Username.Length -gt 1){
        logoff /server $serverName $session.Id
    }
}

In the first line of this script give $serverName the appropriate value or localhost if running locally. I use this script to kick users before an automated process attempts to move some folders around. Prevents "file in use" errors for me. Another note, this script will have to be ran as an administrator user otherwise you can get accessed denied trying to log someone out. Hope this helps!