Disconnecting idle clients - NICE DCV
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Disconnecting idle clients

You can configure NICE DCV to disconnect idle clients. More specifically, you can do this for clients that didn't send any keyboard or pointer input to the NICE DCV server for a specific period of time. By default, the NICE DCV server disconnects NICE DCV clients after being idle for 60 minutes (one hour).

There are certain actions that will reset the idle disconnect timeout period. If any of the following actions occur, the idle timeout period will reset to its set time frame:

  • Moving the mouse

  • Pressing the mouse buttons or moving the mouse wheel

  • Pressing any key on the keyboard

  • Touching the touchscreen (if enabled)

  • Using the stylus (if enabled)

  • Using the gamepad (if enabled)

  • Streaming with the webcam (if enabled)

  • Any file storage operation such as uploading files, creating directories, downloading files, or listing items

Note

Connecting and using any audio devices does not reset the idle timeout period.

You can also configure the NICE DCV server to send a notification to idle clients. The notification is to inform them that their session is about to disconnect. Timeout notifications are supported only with NICE DCV servers and clients version 2017.4 and later.

You can use the following procedures to specify a custom idle timeout period.

Windows NICE DCV server

To change the NICE DCV server's idle timeout period, you must configure the idle-timeout parameter using the Windows Registry Editor.

To change the idle timeout period on Windows

  1. Open the Windows Registry Editor.

  2. Navigate to the HKEY_USERS/S-1-5-18/Software/GSettings/com/nicesoftware/dcv/connectivity/ key and select the idle-timeout parameter.

    If the parameter can't be found, use the following steps to create it:

    1. In the navigation pane, open the context (right-click) menu for the connectivity key. Then, choose New, DWORD (32-bit) value.

    2. For Name, enter idle-timeout and press Enter.

  3. Open the idle-timeout parameter. For Value data, enter a value for the idle timeout period (in minutes, decimal). To avoid disconnecting idle clients, enter 0.

  4. Choose OK and close the Windows Registry Editor.

(Optional) To configure the NICE DCV server to send timeout notifications to idle clients

  1. Navigate to the HKEY_USERS/S-1-5-18/Software/GSettings/com/nicesoftware/dcv/connectivity/ key and select the idle-timeout-warning parameter.

    If the parameter can't be found, use the following steps to create it:

    1. In the navigation pane, open the context (right-click) menu for the connectivity key. Then, choose New, DWORD (32-bit) value.

    2. For Name, enter idle-timeout-warning and press Enter.

  2. Open the idle-timeout-warning parameter. For Value data, enter the number of seconds (decimal) in advance of the disconnection that the associated warning notification is sent. For example, if you want the notification to be sent two minutes before the idle timeout is reached, enter 120.

  3. Choose OK and close the Windows Registry Editor.

Linux NICE DCV server

To change the NICE DCV server's idle timeout period, you must configure the idle-timeout parameter in the dcv.conf file.

To change the idle timeout period on Linux

  1. Open /etc/dcv/dcv.conf with your preferred text editor.

  2. Locate the idle-timeout parameter in the [connectivity] section. Then, replace the existing timeout period with the new timeout period (in minutes, decimal).

    If there's no idle-timeout parameter in the [connectivity] section, add it manually using the following format:

    [connectivity]
  idle-timeout=timeout_in_minutes

    To avoid disconnecting idle clients, enter 0.

  3. Save and close the file.

(Optional) To configure the NICE DCV server to send timeout notifications to idle clients

  1. Open /etc/dcv/dcv.conf with your preferred text editor.

  2. Add the idle-timeout-warning parameter to the [connectivity] section and specify the number of seconds (decimal) in advance of the disconnection that the associated warning notification is sent.

    idle-timeout-warning=seconds_before_idle_timeout

    For example, if you want the notification to be sent two minutes before the idle timeout is reached, specify 120.

  3. Save and close the file.