When you try to connect to the admin console (dashboard) of a NetScaler X you get the error “Connection limit to CFE exceeded”. If you login via SSH is seems the credentials are invalid.

Users with a different username are able to login. In this example vtsha_admin is unable to login, nsroot can login..

Identify sessions

This is because the user you are trying to login with has 20 active system sessions. You can verify the active sessions in the admin console via NetScaler > System Information > System Sessions or via a SSH sessions and the command

show system session -summary

The screenshots are to illustrate there are multiple sessions. The error is only seen with > 20 sessions.

Release sessions

The active sessions can be released in the admin console by selecting the session and clicking on Cancel Session or via a SSH session and the command

kill system session (SessionID)

Prevention

You can prevent this situation by:

• Gracefully logging of you session (on the top-right there’s a Logout button)
• Prevent the session from expiring
• Frequently verifying orphaned sessions and cancelling / killing them

Impacted versions

This is found on the Netscaler 10.0 software with build number 69.4.nc