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Sessions

MSFconsole can manage multiple modules at the same time. This is one of the many reasons it provides the user with so much flexibility. This is done with the use of Sessions, which creates dedicated control interfaces for all of your deployed modules. Once several sessions are created, we can switch between them and link a different module to one of the backgrounded sessions to run on it or turn them into jobs. Note that once a session is placed in the background, it will continue to run, and our connection to the target host will persist. Sessions can, however, die if something goes wrong during the payload runtime, causing the communication channel to tear down.

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Using Sessions

While running any available exploits or auxiliary modules in msfconsole, we can background the session as long as they form a channel of communication with the target host. This can be done either by pressing the [CTRL] + [Z] key combination or by typing the background command in the case of Meterpreter stages. This will prompt us with a confirmation message. After accepting the prompt, we will be taken back to the msfconsole prompt (msf6 >) and will immediately be able to launch a different module.

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Listing Active Sessions

We can use the sessions command to view our currently active sessions.

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Interacting with a Session

You can use the sessions -i [no.] command to open up a specific session.
This is specifically useful when we want to run an additional module on an already exploited system with a formed, stable communication channel. This can be done by backgrounding our current session, which is formed due to the success of the first exploit, searching for the second module we wish to run, and, if made possible by the type of module selected, selecting the session number on which the module should be run. This can be done from the second module’s show options menu. Usually, these modules can be found in the post category, referring to Post-Exploitation modules. The main archetypes of modules in this category consist of credential gatherers, local exploit suggesters, and internal network scanners.

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Jobs

If, for example, we are running an active exploit under a specific port and need this port for a different module, we cannot simply terminate the session using [CTRL] + [C]. If we did that, we would see that the port would still be in use, affecting our use of the new module. So instead, we would need to use the jobs command to look at the currently active tasks running in the background and terminate the old ones to free up the port. Other types of tasks inside sessions can also be converted into jobs to run in the background seamlessly, even if the session dies or disappears.

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Viewing the Jobs Command Help Menu

We can view the help menu for this command, like others, by typing jobs -h.

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Viewing the Exploit Command Help Menu

When we run an exploit, we can run it as a job by typing exploit -j. Per the help menu for the exploit command, adding -j to our command. Instead of just exploit or run, will “run it in the context of a job.”

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Running an Exploit as a Background Job

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Listing Running Jobs

To list all running jobs, we can use the jobs -l command. To kill a specific job, look at the index no. of the job and use the kill [index no.] command. Use the jobs -K command to kill all running jobs.