Get current number of FTP client connections (NonAnonymous) with PowerShell and Get-Counter

Performance Counters to monitor for IIS FTP performance

Ever wanted to know the current number of active FTP client connections on your Windows Server IIS FTP Service? You can get this statistic using PowerShell, the Get-Counter cmdlet and the Microsoft FTP Service Current NonAnonymous Users performance counter.

In my case, I have an NLB FTP cluster of three FTP servers, and I wanted know the number of current connected users. They’re non-anonymous, because they’ve authenticated and are logged on.

In PowerShell, use the Get-Counter cmdlet and connect to your FTP servers:

PS C:\Users\jan> Get-Counter `
>>  -ComputerName ftp-01, ftp-02, ftp-03 `
>>  "\Microsoft FTP Service(_total)\Current NonAnonymous Users"
>>

Timestamp                 CounterSamples
---------                 --------------
5/3/2016 1:49:54 PM       \\ftp-01\\microsoft ftp service(_total)\current nonanonymous users :
                          180

                          \\ftp-02\\microsoft ftp service(_total)\current nonanonymous users :
                          133

                          \\ftp-03\\microsoft ftp service(_total)\current nonanonymous users :
                          100
Code language: PowerShell (powershell)

Remove the back ticks (`) to put the command on one line. The Get-Counter cmdlet information on Technet provides more information and samples.

PowerShell #PSTip: List all available IIS FTP Performance Counters#

You can use (Get-Counter -ComputerName ftp-01 -ListSet '*').counter to list and display all available performance counters in PowerShell.