Manage sessions

Websh sessions let you keep your terminal connections alive even if you close your browser. You can reconnect anytime and even share sessions with team members for real-time collaboration.

Create a session

Start a new terminal session:

  1. Go to Websh page
  2. Click New session button
  3. Select your server and account (see Account selection)
  4. Terminal opens in new tab

Your session is now active and will stay alive even if you close the tab.

Reconnect to a session

Sessions stay active in the background. If your browser closes or you accidentally close the terminal tab, just reconnect.

All sessions tab: Staff and superusers can view an All sessions tab on the Websh page, which shows active sessions across all workspace members. Regular users only see their own sessions.

How to reconnect:

  1. Go to Websh page
  2. Find your session in the list
  3. Click Connect button
  4. Terminal reopens right where you left off

When you might need this:

  • Browser crashed or was closed
  • Terminal tab was accidentally closed
  • Page was refreshed
  • Network connection dropped temporarily

End a session

When you’re done working, properly close your session.

From terminal:

exit

From Websh page:

  1. Find the session card
  2. Click Close button

Share sessions

Need someone to help debug an issue? Share your terminal session so they can see what you’re seeing - or even type commands with you.

Share with URL and password

As the session owner:

  1. Click the Share icon (arrow) on session card or in terminal
  2. Click One-time access link
  3. Configure sharing:
    • Set the Expiry duration (5–180 minutes)
    • Toggle Read-only if you want viewers only (no command execution)
    • Keep it off for full collaboration
  4. Copy the Share URL and Password
  5. Send both to your teammate

Important notes:

  • Share info is shown only once—copy it immediately
  • Link expires after the duration you selected (5–180 minutes)
  • Generate a new link after expiration

As the invited person:

  1. Open the share URL in browser
  2. Enter the password
  3. Terminal opens with live view of the session
  4. If read-only: You can see everything but can’t type commands
  5. If full access: You can type commands alongside the session owner

Share by email

As the session owner:

  1. Click Share icon on session
  2. Select Invite by email
  3. Enter email addresses (multiple allowed)
  4. Click Invite

The invited users receive an email with:

  • Share URL
  • Password
  • Direct link to join

As the invited person:

  1. Check your email for the invitation
  2. Click the link or copy the URL
  3. Enter password from email
  4. Join the session

Use cases for session sharing

Debugging together: Share your session when investigating an issue. Your teammate can see exactly what you’re seeing and suggest commands to run.

Training new team members: Let junior team members observe how you work on production servers. Use read-only mode so they can watch safely.

Getting help: Stuck on a problem? Share your session with a senior engineer. They can see the error messages and help fix it in real-time.

Pair programming: Work on server configuration or scripts together. Both people can type commands and see results instantly.

Session timeout

Inactive sessions close automatically to save resources.

Default timeout: Varies by workspace settings

Configure timeout:

  1. Go to Workspace settings
  2. Find Websh session timeout
  3. Set from 10 minutes to 24 hours

Note: Longer timeouts may increase your workspace costs.

Tips

Keep sessions organized: Name your sessions clearly when creating them. “prod-web-debug” is better than “session-1”.

Close unused sessions: Don’t leave sessions running indefinitely. Close them when done to keep your session list clean.

Use read-only for demos: When showing something to multiple people, use read-only sharing so only you can execute commands.

Set a long enough expiry when sharing: If you expect a troubleshooting session to run long, set a longer expiry duration (up to 180 minutes) when creating the share link.