EP: Citrix – Portal & The DSM Popup

Introduction

Session Management within an Enterprise Portal environment at face value can be a simple and straightforward operation. As end-users we are primarily concerned with simply logging onto the Portal and going about our daily tasks before logging out. However such a process involves a set of core operations and mechanisms which are taking place in the backdrop.

What is the DSM Terminator?

DSM is short for Distributed Session Manager and is a key player in the whole process of using the Enterprise Portal.  In true essence we can consider the DSM to be a “Special Script” which is solely responsible for handling session management on an individual Portal Page.

Citrix, Portal & GoToAssist

GoToAssist Corporate is a web-based remote-support technology that enables SAP support professionals to analyze and resolve technical issues online using screen sharing, mouse and keyboard control and other tools.  It is integrated into the SAP remote support infrastructure and complements SAP’s portfolio of remote access solutions for customers.

DSM Popup & Citrix

So let’s say we have a user using the Enterprise Portal on a daily basis. When this user closes the browser window or navigates to another position, the browser sends a mass request to a dedicated portal component to end one or more open sessions (by default DSM.Terminator).

• This component distributes the corresponding termination commands to the component systems. The Termination command then closes the server session.

To close the sessions, a small additional window is generated in the browser outside the visible screen area. This window is automatically closed after two seconds if the Transmission command has been processed. Since ITS-based services cannot be used directly in session management, the Automatic Server Session Termination works with a wrapper technique. A main page consists of:

• An iFrame that displays the content coming from the ITS
• A special script called the Distributed Session Manager (DSM) that is responsible for handling the session management on the page

DSM Popup Will Not Close (Citrix)

If you are encountering this issue and the DSM Popup is pointing to an empty.gif popup window there is some high level analysis which can be performed firstly.

You can reproduce the behavior and check whether or not:

• If the issue is occurring for each and every user/in all web browser platform types?
• Can this scenario be reproduced in all Portal/Themes & Framework combinations?

If you find that the behavior is consistent across all variations above you can proceed to check the currently maintained DSM Properties.

Those of interest include:

Firstly let us cross-reference your current property settings as per your highlights:

• terminator.navigationAcrossSubFrames under com.sap.portal.dsm  is it set to true?
• AlertSessionManagerMismatch under com.sap.portal.appintegrator is it is set to false?

These properties in themselves determine whether or not the DSM is to remain shown (at all).

• The empty window issue which hangs should be resolved via the application of the manual steps covered in SAP Note: 1401567 – DSM popup window pointing empty.gif does not close on IE7 and above

In relation to properties themselves you can follow SAP Note:1401567 and refresh the property setting to resolve the behavior (‘Terminator.navigationAcrossSubFrames’)

Set the property ‘Terminator.navigationAcrossSubFrames’ in the DSM Service to ‘true’:

1. Go to Service Configuration.
2. Open service ‘com.sap.portal.dsm’ -> ‘dsmservice’.
3. Change the value to true.
4. Save and restart the service.

Please note that a delay here would be expected and normal (in terms of the popup closing) as I have seen this occurrence before solely in relation to Citrix.

Secondly just a point to highlight if the popup does not close (after a slight delay).

If you follow SAP Note: 2114932 – Omission of termination pop up window on closing an Application Integration iView this will cause the DSM Window to be supressed to the end user, while retaining session termination functionality.