Renewing the session

[alvarotrigo]

How are we suppose to renew the session?

Using req.sessionOptions.maxAge = req.session.maxAge within a middle-ware?

[alvarotrigo]

Isn't this like a pretty basic feature of any session component?
I saw it was marked as a "question" but... isn't there any simple answer for it?

I would like the sessions to be renewed on every page load (or ajax call). That's how they usually work anywhere.

I've tried doing this, but without success:

app.use(function(req,res,next ){
     req.sessionOptions.maxAge = 3000;
     return next();
});

[dougwilson]

Hi, I'm sorry, but I'm only maintaining this module and did not write it. I don't know enough about it to answer and have not had the time to investigate. I was hoping someone else could answer. I marked it as a question because I assumed it was possible to do what you ask.

If you're saying instead that it's not possible, I can change the label to a feature request instead.

[alvarotrigo]

If you're saying instead that it's not possible, I can change the label to a feature request instead.

Nop, just asking as I believe documentation doesn't provide the necessary information.

[dougwilson]

Nop, just asking as I believe documentation doesn't provide the necessary information.

Gotcha, that's what I thought and why I labeled this as a question :) The answer from me is "I don't know", which is why I just labeled it and didn't provide an answer. I'll try to take a look into it sometime in the next few weeks if no one else stops by with an answer :)

[alvarotrigo]

Sometimes I wonder how is it possible these modules get downloaded 70K times a month and their documentation and support is so limited.

I might be used to other platforms where things are different... but Node never stops surprising me.

[alvarotrigo]

req.sessionOptions seems to be always empty unless I set an option.

app.use(function(req,res,next ){
    console.log(req.session.user);  //user data
    console.log(req.sessionOptions); //empty array

    req.sessionOptions.maxAge: 4000;
    console.log(req.sessionOptions); //  (maxAge: 4000)
});

Documentation says:

These options are a shallow clone of what was provided at middleware construction and can be altered to change cookie setting behavior on a per-request basis.

[dougwilson]

Hi! Yes, the documentation says:

These options are a shallow clone of what was provided at middleware construction

Did you provide any options at your middleware construction time? It just contains whatever you gave to the module's constructor. Can you show a full app that reproduces?

[alvarotrigo]

Did you provide any options at your middleware construction time?

I did as far as I know:

app.use(cookieSession({
  maxAge: 3 * 1000, //20*60*1000, //20 mins
  httpOnly: true,
  secure: true,
  secureProxy: true,
  keys: ['key1', 'key2']
}));

app.use(function(req,res,next ){
    console.log(req.session.user);  //user data
    console.log(req.sessionOptions); //empty array

    req.sessionOptions.maxAge: 4000;
    console.log(req.sessionOptions); //  (maxAge: 4000)

   return next();
});

I managed to solve the problem with the renew of the session thanks to this answer in stackoverflow.

Although I'm not quite sure yet why updating a fake session has anything to do with the renew of session.user maxAge.

[dougwilson]

Hmm. Perhaps the issue is with your console.log(req.sessionOptions) statement? What happens if you replace both console.log(req.sessionOptions)s with console.log(req.sessionOptions.maxAge) in your program above? And what if you replace both with console.log(JSON.stringify(req.sessionOptions))?

[alvarotrigo]

Interestingly console.log(req.sessionOptions.maxAge) shows the original value.
Not console.log(req.sessionOptions) or console.log(JSON.stringify(req.sessionOptions))

[dougwilson]

Gotcha, that's what I was expecting from how Node.js works. It sounds like everything is working just fine, then to me. Do you have some kind of use-case in your application to do a console.log(req.sessionOptions)?

[alvarotrigo]

Gotcha, that's what I was expecting from how Node.js works.

Why is it?

[dougwilson]

Why is it?

$ node -e 'obj={a:1};console.log(Object.create(obj));console.log(obj.a)'
{}
1