Reading around, it looks like changing asp.net session time when using the InProc model requires two changes...
web.config - Application Pool Idle
Timeout - Seems you should set this >= Session.Timeout
I gathered this from reading http://asp-net.vexedlogic.com/2012/05/23/aspasp-net-session-timeout-how-do-i-change-it/.
So, if I don't have the luxury of changing timeouts on application pools, I'm wondering if I change to use StateServer and then programmatically set Session.Timeout as described in the article above, do I need to worry about what web.config #timeout and application pool idle settings are set at? Will my two actions take care of everything?
If it does take care of it, I guess the next question is whether or not anyone knows how performance compares from InProc vs StateServer.
Thanks in advance.
From my understanding, if you switch from in-proc to state server the idle timeout (in IIS) setting won't have an effect on your session state timeout.
There will still be worker processes that may be terminated in the application pool if there is no activity (if the idle timeout is passed) but the session state (i.e. the user session and application session values) will be maintained beyond this. Your session timeout should just be controlled by the timeout value set in the configuration (from here) i.e.
<configuration>
<system.web>
<sessionState mode="StateServer"
stateConnectionString="tcpip=SampleStateServer:42424"
cookieless="false"
timeout="20"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>
Inproc is faster than StateServer as your session data needs to be serialised / deserialised when it's stored. It may also be stored on a separate machine which may introduce some latency. But of course there are the advantages of State Server i.e. Session state persistence between application restarts (app pool recycling), state can be shared across multiple servers in a web-farm.
This question also discusses pros and cons of using the State Server mode.
Related
I store some data in Session cookies.. like User ID for example. I set the timeout to expire in 60 minutes like so:
<configuration>
<system.web>
<sessionState timeout="60"></sessionState>
</system.web>
</configuration>
But there are times where it is expiring as fast as 10 minutes or so. I cannot figure out why. Is there something I am missing?
The default session provider for IIS/.NET is InProc, which is short for In Process (i.e. volatile memory). What this means is that, if for any reason, the process restarts, all session data will be lost as the data stored within the process is lost when the executable restarts / is shut down. IIS web applications will shut down after some period of time by default, which would cause all session data to be lost. This can also include starting and stopping debugging sessions (per comment below).
Another possible issue would be if you are deploying to a server farm. InProc sessions cannot be shared across multiple web servers.
If you are deploying to a single server and you can control the configuration, check to see how often the process (App Pool) is set to recycle or timeout. You may want to increase this timeout period to better suit your session requirements.
If you are deploying to a web farm (more than one machine or cloud hosted) or cannot control the server configuration, then you should look at implementing something like Sql Session State provider in your application. This will provide a sole source for storing session data that can be shared between multiple web servers as well as the data is stored independent of the running process, so it will survive process restarts/crashes.
Try to Log reason for your session expire
Set web.config
<configuration>
<system.web>
<sessionState mode="InProc" timeout="20"></sessionState>
</system.web>
</configuration>
On global.asax
void Session_End(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Write your code to capture log
}
This is the syntax am using in web.config.
But my session get expire within 10 to 15 minutes not staying upto 2 hrs.
<sessionState cookieless="UseCookies" cookieName="ASP.NET_SessionId180"
mode="InProc" timeout="120" />
One possible cause is that the application domain gets recycled by IIS. And since you are using InProc session state the whole memory of the AppDomain gets wiped out. IIS could recycle the AppDomain under different circumstances: certain period of inactivity or CPU/memory threshold limits are reached.
You can read more about this in the following blog post.
The "worker" is most likely the one who causes your problem. If it recycle it will reset the session if its idle long enough.
Check your IIS AppPool setting and increase the idle timeout setting.
As you use the InProc session state, it's possible that the pool is recycled due to some actions: modifying web.config, copying files to the bin folder,...
Check also the recycling parameters of the pool.
You can try to use the StateServer option for your session. To do this, you need to start the ASP.NET state service and check that your objects are marked as serializable.
When I update an ASP.NET Website [note: it's not a Web Application] running on a customer server by overwriting it with the latest version it currently kicks all the users off.
I'd prefer to be able to deliver a new version of a site without kicking off users - is there a way to minimise the chance that users will get kicked off? [apart from the obvious one of waiting for a time of low-usage]
If I moved from InProc to Session State I guess this might do the trick - but is there any other method?
Chaning away from InProc Session State should help.
The problem now is that any time your app is reset in IIS (overwriting the web.config will cause a restart), the IIS Worker process restarts and clears your session info.
Check out this MSDN Page to read the limitations of In-Process Session State:
Session State - MSDN
I think additionally to what you are suggesting, it will be appropriate to display an "update in progress..." page instead of kicking off users. You can do that by changing your web.config file.
Session IDs are valid for the lifetime of the application pool, or until (I believe) 20 minutes following the last page request from the client in question. This is configurable in web.config:
<configuration>
<system.web>
<sessionState
cookieless="false"
timeout="20"
</sessionState>
</system.web>
</configuration>
If the application pool is recycled, files within the application are updated, etc, your session IDs will be invalidated. For this reason it is considered wise to deploy your site during off-peak hours.
Design your application to not rely on the existence of session state variables. Use cookies for authentication (or integrated auth) and check for session variables as you use them; reload them if they don't exist.
like the title shows I want to know what is the difference between "InProc" & "stateServer" mode in SessionState on ASP.NET.
Thanks
In InProc mode, a live Session object is stored in RAM in the ASP.NET worker process (aspnet_wp.exe). It is usually the fastest, but more session data means the more memory is used on the web server, and that can affect performance.
In StateServer mode, each session is converted to XML (serialized) and stored in memory in a separate process (aspnet_state.exe). This state Server can run on another machine.
ASP.NET Session State FAQ
This MSDN article covers SessionState in detail.
Off - Used to disable sessions on website.
InProc - Sessions are stored inside of application's process on web server. Depending of IIS version used that could be aspnet_wp.exe or w3wp.exe.
StateServer - Sessions are stored using State Server windows service.
SQLServer - SQL Server database is used to store sessions' data
Custom - Manage session state using custom session state provider. Storage could be anything you implement in provider.
To specify session state mode in web.config, select one of these values for sessionState mode parameter:
In web.config file, <sessionState> element is located under <configuration>, <system.web> element.
Authentication cookies seem to timeout after a short period of time (a day or so). I am using Forms Authentication and have the timeout="10080" with slidingExpiration="false" in the web.config. With that setting, the cookie should expire roughly 7 days after the user is successfully authenticated.
This worked as advertised with IIS6, but when I moved the site to IIS7, the cookie expires much quicker. I've confirmed this behavior on multiple machines with IE and Firefox, leading me to believe it's an IIS7 setting.
Is there a hidden setting that is IIS7 specific related to authentication? All other authentication types are disabled for the website, except for anonymous user tracking.
The authentication cookie is encrypted using the machineKey value from the local web.config or the global machine.config. If no such key is explicitly set, a key will be automatically generated, but it is not persisted to disk – hence, it will change whenever the application is restarted or "recycled" due to inactivity, and a new key will be created on the next hit.
Resolving the problem is as easy as adding a <machineKey> configuration section to web.config, or possibly (preferably?) to the machine.config on the server (untested):
<system.web>
...
<machineKey
validationKey="..."
decryptionKey="..."
validation="SHA1"
decryption="AES"/>
...
</system.web>
Google generate random machinekey for sites that can generate this section for you. If your application deals with confidential information, you might want to create the keys yourself, though.
My understanding is that cookies are expired by the consuming party - the browser, which means that IIS has no say in this
Set session state configured in IIS as
In Process
Use Cookies
Time out = your required time
Use hosting identity for impersonation
Also set EnableSessionState to true (which is default too)
And most importantly run the app pool in classic mode.
Hope your problem will solve.
First of all i must say that these "guidelines" are generic and not iis-7 exclusive.
In web.config under <system.web>
you either have <sessionState mode="StateServer" stateConnectionString="tcpip=localhost:42424" timeout="130" cookieless="false"/> (which requires the ASP.NET Session State Server service running on localhost)
or <sessionState mode="InProc" timeout="130" cookieless="false"/>.
The main difference is that in InProc that session state data are placed in the application process itself. In the other setting a different service is doing the storage, and you application just polls it to get the required data.
Having used both (as well as sql-server session state mode) the InProc is the least reliable but the fastest. The Sql-server is the most reliable and the slowest and the StateServer mode is somewhere in the middle being unreliable only in the case of a power/system failure. Having said that, i must say that for site with a low request count the performance penalty is negligible.
Now, my experience has shown that InProc is quite unpredictable on its stability; i used to have the same problem with you. I was able to extend the stability of the application by tweaking the settings of the application pool, i removed the problem altogether by switching to SessionState (which also allows to bring down the application and not lose session state data).
The reasons that you may suffer from application/session stability:
IIS and application pooling. Each virtul directory of a website is assigned to an application pool (by default to "DefaultAppPool") which has a series of settings amongst which you define the interval that the process is "recycled" - and as such preserve system resources. If you don't change the settings the application may trigger one of the criteria for the process recycler, which means that your application is busted
Antivirus.
In a ASP.NET application if the web.config (and any child .config files the application depends on) file is touched the application is restarted. Now there are cases where an antivirus program may touch the web.config file (say once a day?) and as such the application is restarted and session data is lost.
Bad configuration
Specifically for Forms Authentication the time-related settings and behavior always where dependent on the web-session with the auth-session being under the web-session.
What i don't know is if the Forms Authentication module depends only on Session domain or if it also places data in the application domain as well. If the second is the case then you may have to disable all recycling settings in the Application Pool as well as checking again configuration/antivirus and who stores the session data.
I recently had the same problem where my site was timing out every 20 minutes even though I set the session timeout to 2 hours. I found that it was because IIS worker process was timing out every 20 minutes: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783089(WS.10).aspx