What Is a Session?

A session is the collection of applications, settings, and resources present on the user's desktop. Session management is a set of conventions and protocols that enables Session Manager to save and restore a user's session. A user is able to log in to the system and be presented with the same set of running applications, settings, and resources as were present when the user logged off. When a user logs in to the desktop for the first time, a default initial session is loaded. Afterward, Session Manager supports the notion of a current and a home session.

The Initial Session

When a user logs in to the desktop for the first time, Session Manager will generate the user's initial session using system default values. By default, the File Manager and Introduction to the Desktop, a help volume, will start.

Current Session

The user's running session is always considered the current session, whether restored upon login from a saved home session, a saved current session, or the system default initial session. Based on the user's Style Manager Startup settings, when the user exits the session, Session Manager automatically saves the current session. When the user next logs in to the desktop, Session Manager restarts the previously saved current session, meaning that the desktop will be restored to same state as when the user last logged out.

Home Session

You can also have the desktop restored to the same state every time the user logs in, regardless of its state when the user logged out. The user can save the state of the current session and then, using the Style Manager Startup settings, have Session Manager start that session every time the user logs in.

Display-Specific Sessions

To run a specific session for a specific display, a user can create a display-specific session. To do this, the user can copy the HomeDirectory/.dt/sessions directory to HomeDirectory/.dt/display, where display is the real, unqualified host name (for example, pablo:0 is valid, pablo.gato.com:0 or unix:0 is not). When the user logs in on display pablo:0, Session Manager will start that display-specific session.