Apache Module mod_session_cookie

Summary

This submodule ofmod_session provides support for the storage of user sessions on the remote browser within HTTP cookies.

Using cookies to store a session removes the need for the server or a group of servers to store the session locally, or collaborate to share a session, and can be useful for high traffic environments where a server based session might be too resource intensive.

If session privacy is required, themod_session_crypto module can be used to encrypt the contents of the session before writing the session to the client.

For more details on the session interface, see the documentation for themod_session module.

Topics

• Basic Examples

Directives

• SessionCookieName
• SessionCookieName2
• SessionCookieRemove

Bugfix checklist

• httpd changelog
• Known issues
• Report a bug

See also

• mod_session
• mod_session_crypto
• mod_session_dbd
• Comments

Basic Examples

To create a simple session and store it in a cookie calledsession, configure the session as follows:

Session OnSessionCookieName session path=/

For more examples on how the session can be configured to be read from and written to by a CGI application, see themod_session examples section.

For documentation on how the session can be used to store username and password details, see themod_auth_form module.

SessionCookieNameDirective

TheSessionCookieName directive specifies the name and optional attributes of an RFC2109 compliant cookie inside which the session will be stored. RFC2109 cookies are set using theSet-Cookie HTTP header.

An optional list of cookie attributes can be specified, as per the example below. These attributes are inserted into the cookie as is, and are not interpreted by Apache. Ensure that your attributes are defined correctly as per the cookie specification.

Session OnSessionCookieName session path=/private;domain=example.com;httponly;secure;version=1;

SessionCookieName2Directive

TheSessionCookieName2 directive specifies the name and optional attributes of an RFC2965 compliant cookie inside which the session will be stored. RFC2965 cookies are set using theSet-Cookie2 HTTP header.

An optional list of cookie attributes can be specified, as per the example below. These attributes are inserted into the cookie as is, and are not interpreted by Apache. Ensure that your attributes are defined correctly as per the cookie specification.

Session OnSessionCookieName2 session path=/private;domain=example.com;httponly;secure;version=1;

SessionCookieRemoveDirective

TheSessionCookieRemove flag controls whether the cookies containing the session will be removed from the headers during request processing.

In a reverse proxy situation where the Apache server acts as a server frontend for a backend origin server, revealing the contents of the session cookie to the backend could be a potential privacy violation. When set to on, the session cookie will be removed from the incoming HTTP headers.