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 choose:
    • Websh - Connect as your user
    • Websh as root - Connect with root privileges (requires additional authentication)
  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.

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:
    • 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 in 30 minutes (can extend up to 3 hours)
  • 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 15 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.

Extend share links when needed: If a 30-minute session isn’t enough for a long troubleshooting session, extend it to the maximum before sharing.