How to change jsessionid cookie path to server root in Spring app on Jetty?

Tauren picture Tauren · Oct 6, 2012 · Viewed 20.2k times · Source

I have a Jetty server running a Spring app on the /app context. The app uses sessions, so it sets a session cookie, which responds like this:

set-cookie:JSESSIONID=679b6291-d1cc-47be-bbf6-7ec75214f4e5; Path=/app; HttpOnly

I need that cookie to have a path of / instead of the webapp's context. Plus I want to use secure cookies. I want this response:

set-cookie:JSESSIONID=679b6291-d1cc-47be-bbf6-7ec75214f4e5; Path=/; HttpOnly; Secure

Where is the proper place to configure the session cookie? Does spring help with this? Should it be in web.xml? Or do I need to configure it in a container specific way, such as jetty-web.xml?

I've tried a bunch of things, but nothing has worked so far. Below are some things I tried.


Attempt #1

Created WEB-INF/jetty-web.xml with the following:

<Configure class="org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext">
    <Get name="sessionHandler">
      <Get name="sessionManager">
        <Set name="sessionCookie">MYJETTYSESSION</Set>
        <Set name="sessionPath">/</Set>
        <Set name="secureCookies" type="boolean">true</Set>
        <Set name="httpOnly" type="boolean">true</Set>
      </Get>
    </Get>
</Configure>

This causes an exception to be thrown:

2012-10-05 02:41:41.180:WARN:oejx.XmlConfiguration:Config error at <Set name="sessionPath">/</Set> java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: class org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.HashSessionManager.setSessionPath(class java.lang.String)
2012-10-05 02:41:41.180:WARN:oejx.XmlConfiguration:Config error at <Get name="sessionManager"><Set name="sessionCookie">MYJETTYSESSION</Set><Set name="sessionPath">/</Set><Set name="secureCookies">true</Set><Set name="httpOnly">true</Set></Get> java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: class org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.HashSessionManager.setSessionPath(class java.lang.String)
2012-10-05 02:41:41.180:WARN:oejx.XmlConfiguration:Config error at <Get name="sessionHandler"><Get name="sessionManager"><Set name="sessionCookie">MYJETTYSESSION</Set><Set name="sessionPath">/</Set><Set name="secureCookies">true</Set><Set name="httpOnly">true</Set></Get></Get> java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: class 

The full stack trace is in this gist.

Attempt #2

Created WEB-INF/jetty-web.xml with the following:

<Configure class="org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext">
    <Call name="setInitParameter">
        <Arg>org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.SessionCookie</Arg>
        <Arg>MYSESSIONID</Arg>
    </Call>
    <Call name="setInitParameter">
        <Arg>org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.SessionIdPathParameterName</Arg>
        <Arg>mysessionid</Arg>
    </Call>
    <Call name="setInitParameter">
        <Arg>org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.SessionPath</Arg>
        <Arg>/</Arg>
    </Call>
</Configure>

This does not cause any exception, but the cookie is still JSESSIONID and contains the webapp context path /app.

Attempt #3

Updated WEB-INF/web.xml with the following:

<context-param>
    <param-name>org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.SessionPath</param-name>
    <param-value>/</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
    <param-name>org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.SessionCookie</param-name>
    <param-value>MYSESS</param-value>
</context-param>

This does not cause any exception, but the cookie is still JSESSIONID and contains the webapp context path /app.

Attempt #4

Updated WEB-INF/web.xml with the following:

<session-config>
    <session-timeout>720</session-timeout>
    <cookie-config>
        <name>SZSESSION</name>
        <path>/</path>
        <http-only>true</http-only>
        <secure>true</secure>
    </cookie-config>
</session-config>

This does not cause any exception, but the cookie is still JSESSIONID and contains the webapp context path /app.

Maven configuration

Note that I'm using Jetty Maven Plugin version 8.1.5.v20120716 and doing a mvn jetty:run:

<jetty.maven.plugin.version>8.1.5.v20120716</jetty.maven.plugin.version>
<spring.version>3.0.0.RELEASE</spring.version>
  ...
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId>
    <artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${jetty.maven.plugin.version}</version>
    <configuration>
        <scanIntervalSeconds>10</scanIntervalSeconds>
        <reload>manual</reload>
        <stopPort>${jetty.stop.port}</stopPort>
        <stopKey>foo</stopKey>
        <webAppConfig>
              <contextPath>/app</contextPath>
        </webAppConfig>
    </configuration>
       ...
</plugin>

Answer

jesse mcconnell picture jesse mcconnell · Oct 6, 2012

Attempt #4 is on the right track.

Providing I am reading this right, you're using the maven configuration on the context /app which means in your web.xml the / your settings is /app because that is the root of the context you're configuring.

Put another way you can't configure the session for www.foo.com/ if you are only deploying into the www.foo.com/app context, imagine if someone else were deploying apps into that url, you can't just decide to make your session cookies apply to everyone operating under that url.