check idle

[Maksim-Siniugin]

I have several codeservers running, how can I find out if someone is using one of them, or is it idle?

jupyterlab has an api for this. For example /api/kernels will show the status of the kernels, whether they are active or idle, or /api/terminals will show the status of running terminals.

Maybe there is something similar in codeserver to explicitly notice user activity inside the server?

[jsjoeio]

I think you could check the /healthz endpoint

I believe it beats every second and allows you to indicate whether or not there is activity:

• https://github.com/coder/code-server/blob/main/src/node/heart.ts
• https://github.com/coder/code-server/blob/main/test/unit/node/heart.test.ts
• https://github.com/coder/code-server/blob/main/src/node/routes/index.ts#L58-L62

[code-asher]

You could use the status property of /healthz. This will be "alive" if there are active connections to code-server (in other words someone has a browser window open) in the last minute. Or you could use lastHeartbeat which is the last time code-server had an active connection (updated every minute).

Others use the heartbeat file on disk in ~/.local/share/code-server/heartbeat. The timestamp updates every minute so that can be used to create an idle timer.

There is not currently a way to differentiate between someone actively using code-server versus just having the window open and doing nothing though.

https://github.com/coder/code-server/blob/main/docs/FAQ.md#what-is-the-healthz-endpoint
https://github.com/coder/code-server/blob/main/docs/FAQ.md#what-is-the-heartbeat-file

[Maksim-Siniugin]

ok thx

[spencerng94]

How does the server determine if it is alive or dead?

"This will be "alive" if there are active connections to code-server (in other words someone has a browser window open) in the last minute."

How does it check for active connections though? Where in the code is this?

[code-asher]

It asks the HTTP server how many things are connected to it:

code-server/src/node/routes/index.ts

Lines 34 to 52 in 5b62943

	const heart = new Heart(path.join(paths.data, "heartbeat"), async () => {
	return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
	// getConnections appears to not call the callback when there are no more
	// connections. Feels like it must be a bug? For now add a timer to make
	// sure we eventually resolve.
	const timer = setTimeout(() => {
	logger.debug("Node failed to respond with connections; assuming zero")
	resolve(false)
	}, 5000)
	app.server.getConnections((error, count) => {
	clearTimeout(timer)
	if (error) {
	return reject(error)
	}
	logger.debug(plural(count, `${count} active connection`))
	resolve(count > 0)
	})
	})
	})

[code-asher]

Oh and by "things" specifically we are expecting at least two connections from the two web sockets VS Code opens (although there might be temporarily more connections for transient requests for assets and the like).