I'm trying to increase the timeout on all sessions. The site is hosted with Godaddy, and it is written in Flash (client side of course) and asp.net on the backend. I've added this to my web.config,
<sessionState timeout="720">
</sessionState>
Is that really all that I need to do? I'd prefer to not let sessions expire ever, but I'm sure that the server needs to reclaim that memory at some point...I'm not storing anything in the session, really, just using it to track users' progress through the site, and if a user is logged in or not.
Thanks for any pointers...all the documentation seems deceptively simple, and it kind of makes me nervous...
Yup!
As in; Yes, that's the only thing you need to do...
To get "never ending timeouts" you'd have to create a background HTTP request (which will transmit the session cookie) back to the server every 719 minute though. Though theoretically then you'd also have to have "Out of Process" sessions using e.g. some sort of database or something...
Or you could roll your own session handler, I think APS.NET have support for this through using some sort of adapter pattern or something, but I am not sure. Then you could have a "truly" never ending session...
If you are using Forms Authentication you will also need to set the Forms Authentication Timeout in your web.config
Example:
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms
name=".ASPXAUTH"
loginUrl="/Home/Default.aspx"
defaultUrl="/Dashboard/Default.aspx"
protection="All"
timeout="30"
slidingExpiration="true"
/>
</authentication>
Related
While deveoping a site (using Forms authentication and InProc sessionstate) a frequently run into a scenario where I lose the variables stored in Session (such as Session["myVar"]), but my auth-session remains valid.
This results in some wierd behavior on my site.
Why is this happening and what can I do to prevent diffrent lifecycles for my auth and my session variables?
In Asp.Net a Session and "Being logged in" are not the same thing.
Both are (usually) controlled by cookies, but the cookies are separate.
To control how long a Session is kept alive, please see answer by Jonas T.
To control how long a user remains logged in, you can use the timeOut on the <forms ... /> element:
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="~/Account/Login.aspx" timeout="120" slidingExpiration="true"/>
</authentication>
...
</system.web>
To get rid of your problem you should make sure that the session timeout is at least as long as the forms authentication timeout.
If you are allowing persisted cookies in forms authentication ("Remember me"), then there are no gurantees. In that case you just have to set the session timeout to "long enough" according to some criteria/specification.
Edit: Also check the settings on your application pool (under IIS) where the site is deployed. And specifically check what the "Idle Time-out" is. If this is set low (default value is 20 minutes I think), then IIS will shut down the application pool if no request have come in during that time. That (of course) terminates whatever in-proc sessions existed.
Forms Authentication stores its ticket in Cookie at client side or URL(if cookie is disabled).
Session variables are stored at server side with expired time. If you want your variable to be more persistent use cookie.
You can extend your session time out in web config. This is for 20 minutes.
<configuration>
<system.web>
<sessionState timeout="20"></sessionState>
</system.web>
</configuration>
You said that you are working with ASP.NET Form authentication/authorization then I'd suggest you to use Profile instead of Session state.
Due to the complex business logic, I had to implement myself the authentication. I'm storing the authentication with:
FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(identifier,false);
The False is to indicate that we don't want to have persistent cookie
I've to also store in session some informations(one information that the user has to enter to login, indicating for which set of data he wants to access).
I'm storing those data through model binder.
It's working fine most of the time. But sometime after an inactivity period, we are still logged but we don't have any data in session.
I would like that the duration of my session is the same than the login session, to avoid this kind of "I'm logged but I've lost some data in the session".
I don't need/want to have a persistent connection.
How should I proceed to have this system?
I believe the FormsAuthentication uses its own timeout. You can configure your web.config accordingly:
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms timeout="50"/>
</authentication>
<sessionState timeout="50" />
</system.web>
In fact, There was a Session timeout by default in the IIS Application pool, so, to avoid this problem:
Go on IIS Manager
Go on the ServerName/Application Pools tab
Right click on the concerned application pool
Click on Advanced Settings,
In the section "Process Model", put an higher value in the "Idle Time-out"(this is in minutes
Click on OK
Restart the application pool
For me, this + the Yannis config(setting the same value for the form timeout+session state timeout) worked.
We are developing a web application in Asp.net(4.0). In this application we use jquery and javascript and webservices and I frames
Here I am getting the problem with session expire. How can I solve this? I can't understand where the session is expiring.
If I'm understanding the question properly, you can adjust session timeout in your Web.config file, using something like this:
<system.web>
<sessionState mode="[Off|InProc|StateServer|SQLServer|Custom]" timeout="[numberOfMinutes]" />
...
</system.web>
Your use of JQuery, javascript, webservices, and IFrames are not affecting your session expiration issue.
The following page is an excellent resource for learning to use the Session State:
ASP.NET Session State Overview
Go to the section on that page titled Configuring Session State for information pertaining specifically to your question.
Here's your options for Session State configuration, including timeout:
<sessionState mode="SQLServer"
cookieless="true "
regenerateExpiredSessionId="true "
timeout="30"
sqlConnectionString="Data Source=MySqlServer;Integrated Security=SSPI;"
stateNetworkTimeout="30"/>
Please help me I'm getting desperate here trying to find the problem, and I don't know where to start looking for it.
Here are the symptoms:
I've noticed, that when a user logs on in the morning, he is then immediately logged off, then when he logs on again, everything is fine and he can work on the site.
Every once in a while, when the user clicks a link, the page takes a lot of time to load, but it never actually loads, and the user is thrown to the login page.
Also, after an Exception has occurred in the website, the user is then thrown to the login page. It's as if the exception clears somehow the session.
Do any of you know of a situation where this might happen ?
The code I use in every page in my application is as follows :
If (Not User.Identity.IsAuthenticated) Then
Response.Redirect("../login2.aspx")
End If
' If session timeout then return to login screen '
If ((Session("LocationId") Is DBNull.Value) Or (Session("LocationId") Is Nothing))
Then
Response.Redirect("../login2.aspx")
End If
The code in the web.config:
<sessionState cookieless="false" timeout="600" />
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms timeout="600" />
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
Why are you using that code in every page?
.NET authorization and authentication normally takes care of all those things if you have it set up correctly.
Related to this scenario *`
".... after an Exception has occurred
in the website, the user is then
thrown to the login page. It's as if
the exception clears somehow the
session
I know of one possible situation where it may occur.
It is far fetched especially in a production scenaio for multiple reasons but i have seen it happen :-)
If the session is In Memory and logging is done by writing to a log file that is in the Bin directory of the application, then this may occur as modifying the bin folder of the web application results in the application restarting i.e the in memory session getting lost.
Just one possible scenario. If your session is not in Memory OR your logging mechanism isnt like this, then this doesnt apply to you.
I am turning to all the dot net experts out there because I am really desperate,
let me give another symptom of the problem because it still persists,
the server is a very strong server - intel xeon with a 3 gb ram, so it is probably not a problem of resources.
When the user uses the system continuously there is no problem and she can work freely, the problem arises when the user leaves the computer (or the application for that matter) for as long as 5 minutes, then when she wants to continue working and clicks a link in the application she is thrown to the login page. when she tries to login again, she succeeds, but after she clicks another link, she is thrown out again, then when she logins she can work freely and everything is fine.
Somehow the session is being cleared when the site is idle. let me emphasize that this doesn't happen when I run the app in visual studio, only in iis.
The app was converted from asp.net 2.0 to 3.5,
that's it, thanks
First of all, you need to deny access for non-authenticated (anonymous) users:
<authorization>
<deny users="?" />
</authorization>
Have you configured default and login pages?
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms name=".ASPXFORMSAUTH" loginUrl="Login.aspx" defaultUrl="Default.aspx" slidingExpiration="true" timeout="30" />
</authentication>
name sets the name of a cookie, useful if you will use .NET 2.0 built-in security infrastructure (roles, membership, etc)
slidingExpiration enabled normal timeout behavior - any user action resets timeout
If you are just using the normal session functionality in asp.net I believe that the session times out after 15-30 minutes of inactivity (I typically don't use session so I remember it is somewhere in this range). Every postback to the server resets this timer so if a user is active doing things then they won't hit this time out.
For the page taking a long time to load it is most likely due to the worker process recycling and that user is the first user to access the site after a recycle which triggers IIS to do all of it's compilation stuff and then serve the page which causes the delay. This only happens for the first visitor after a worker process recycle. You can change this behavior in IIS to happen on a schedule rather than after a certain amount of time has passed without activity. This will cause your worker process to take up more memory though so depending on your environment this might not be a good change to make.
EDIT: I should add that the code you posted explains exactly why the user is kicked back to the login page. It is checking to make sure that there is something in the session and if there isn't anything there it kicks the user back to the login page. So if they are inactive for too long your session times out, so it is cleared, and the user is kicked back to the login page by your code. Also you should use FormsAuthentication.RedirectToLoginPage(); for your redirect instead of Response.Redirect. This way after logging in they go back to the page they requested originally.
What is the best way to keep asp.net or asp.net mvc session active until user logs out?
*User should be able to activate session even after browser or computer restarts...
In another words, what is the best way to implement REMEMBER ME...
You can set the timeout setting to a higher value, but you can't make the difference between a session_end caused by a timeout or by a user that ends his session.
The solution to your problem is probably to restore the user's session in the session_start method in Global.asax.
You can use membership provider for this purpose and set a cookie file at the user browser and check it for authentication
Another idea is to send keep-alive request in background via iframe / ajax / image tag every minute or so.
The best way to be able to do this is to use cookies in your authentication strategy to indicate that a user is logged in. Set your website to use forms authentication, and set the pertinent attributes to use cookies. It can be done in your Web.config file:
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="Login.aspx"
protection="All"
timeout="30"
name="AppNameCookie"
path="/FormsAuth"
requireSSL="false"
slidingExpiration="true"
defaultUrl="default.aspx"
cookieless="UseCookies"
enableCrossAppRedirects="false"/>
</authentication>
For more information read this: How To: Use Membership in ASP.NET 2.0