Multiple plink processes stopping SSH access to a device

Last Modified

Tue 19 Jan 10:25 GMT 2021

Description

  • After running an Automation Policy to SSH into a device, the executing device may have one or more instances of plink.exe left running and the remote device may refuse connections due to too many active connections.

Environment

  • N-able N-central
  • Automation Manager

Solution

  • plink.exe is used by the agent or probe to SSH into a device when an Automation Policy includes this action.
  • If you do not close the session properly in your Automation Policy, the session can remain open even after the script is completed.
  • In this case, you would need to use Task Manager to kill the plink.exe processes manually.
  • To avoid this behaviour, be sure to close your SSH sessions by logging out, then using the "Close Connection" object to close the session.