Modify session cookie expiry and session timeout for a CakePHP session

session cakephp cakephp-1.3 session-timeout
sharmil picture sharmil · Feb 15, 2012 · Viewed 11.5k times · Source

I'm struggling to accomplish the following: Alter the user's session cookie expiry date based on the user's type.

I have a CakePHP web application wherein I have created my authentication component (instead of CakePHP's Auth) using CakePHP sessions. I've configured CakePHP to handle sessions using the database.

Here are the relevant configuration settings that I have in my config.php:

Configure::write('Session.save', 'database');
Configure::write('Session.timeout', '36');
Configure::write('Security.level', 'medium');

How do I extend the session cookie expiry date AND update the value in the "expires" column in the "sessions" table?

Answer

Vineet picture Vineet · Apr 4, 2012

Go in app/config/core.php

In this file search for,

Configure::write('Session.timeout', '120');

Session time out time (in seconds), by default it is 120 seconds. You can edit it here as required. Now the actual timeout duration depends on,

Configure::write('Security.level', 'medium');

if 'high' then Session timeout in 'Session.timeout' x 10, 
if 'medium' then Session timeout in 'Session.timeout' x 100, 
if 'low'    Session timeout in 'Session.timeout' x 300

So by combination of Session.timeout and Security.level you can get the desired session timeout

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