KB-1422 How to determine which application server node is hosting the current user session

Purpose

Sometimes it may be necessary to determine which application server node a session is hitting for troubleshooting purposes. This article outlines how to do this for an environment with multiple application servers.

Instructions

Each application server will have an instance-id/node-name that uniquely identifies that instance. If using JBoss, navigate to the standalone.xml file for the application server node you would like to hit and find the line where "instance-id" is defined. If using Tomcat, navigate to setenv.bat|sh file and find the line where DjvmRoute is defined.

Chrome/Firefox

1. Visit the site URL to load the login page.
2. Press F12 to open Chrome/Firefox Developer Tools.
3. In Chrome, click “Application” > “Cookies” > <site-url> > “JSESSIONID”. In Firefox, click "Storage" > "Cookies" > <site-url> > "JSESSIONID".
4. Mouse over the value of JSESSIONID and you will see an alphanumeric string which ends with a node number. 
5. If you are not on the desired application server node that was noted in step 1, double click the value and delete the contents.
6. Refresh the page and repeat the above steps until you get to the desired node ID.

Internet Explorer

1. Visit the site URL in a private browsing session.
2. Press F12 and click on the 'Network' tab. 
3. Click on the green play button to start capturing network traffic, and reload the page. 
4. Once the page is done loading, click on the red stop button, and then click on the Details tab. You should see the JSESSIONID stored in the Cookie field. 
5. Take note of the node ID, then close the window and try these steps again until you get the correct node ID. 

Note: This approach (modified slightly for the browser) will work for the Chrome and Firefox as well.

Affected Versions

This article applies to Appian environments with multiple application servers. 

Last Reviewed: January 2019