Will extending session timeout cause a performance hit?

[Sulman]

Hey all,

 

I'm looking to extend the session timeout in the ini file to about 12 hours. Will setting the session this long have any impact on server performance etc?

 

Thanks

[trq]

12 hours? Use cookies. Session are not persistent storage.

[Sulman]

Thanks

 

I was thinking about cookies but this is a "logged in" flag so I didn't want people to be able to hack it.

 

will setting 12 hours cause any problems?

[corbin]

Session IDs are typically stored in cookies, and browsers typically delete those cookies when closed.

 

 

As such, you will have to store it in cookies unless you plan on having a user leave his browser open 12 hours.  Just remember with cookies, never trust the user data.  Instead of having something like:

 

username=corbin

loggedin=1

 

In the cookies, have something like

username=corbin

password=md5 hash of password (or sha1 or whatever)

 

That way you can actually validate something and not just blindly trust the cookie.

[Sulman]

Thanks for all your replies,

 

I've increased the session timeout with no performance hit so far and will take your suggestions on board and look at implementing a cookie based secure solution.

 

Thanks all.