Session cookies and PHP.ini question

[Daen]

I've looked through the first ten pages of topics posted on the forum here and not found an answer to my problem, and I haven't been able to find it with the search (it returns me an error executing the query every time I try to use it). The tutorials also don't seem to answer my question, so, if this question's already been answered, please forgive me for asking it again, and just point me in the right direction.

The problem is this: I just got ahold of Apache2Triad, installed it on my machine, and I'm currently only using it to run the localhost page. It's version 1.5.3, Apache version 2.0.54. It's running PHP version 5.0.4. My computer is running Win XP. I've been trying to do a simple log-in using the sessions and had some problems. The thing is, when I link to the pages on my site with the SID in the URL, it works just fine. It doesn't work when I try to do it through session cookies, though. Here's the relevant code for the log-in:

The first block is from the log-in form. The two links are one with the SID concatenated, and the second is without, so I can test the cookies.

[code]        $_SESSION['username'] = "$username";
        echo "User: ".$_SESSION['username']."<br>\n";
        echo "<a href=\"index.php?".SID."\">Go to index</a><br>\n";
        echo "<a href=\"index.php\">Go to index minus SID</a>";
[/code]

This next part is in the page that they will be logged into:

[code]       if(!$_SESSION['username'])    // check to see if logged in
    {
        echo "Not picking up session data.";
        echo "<pre>";
        print_r($_SESSION);
        echo "</pre>";
        include('login.html');
    }
    else                // if they are, include the logged in info
    {
        include('logoutLink.php');
    }[/code]

The first line of the file is session_start(), before anything is output to the browser. I'm also not getting any errors in the php error log. When I log in and click the link with the SID, it reads the variables just fine after it gets done loading, but if I click the other I get the "Not picking up session data" message, and the print_r() gives me a blank array.

I think it might have something to do with some flag in my php.ini, but I don't know which one it is or what to change it to. I've tried to find it in various places, and with no luck.

I've tried it in both IE and Firefox, and both have cookies enabled for all sites.

If you could point out to me if there's something not set correctly in the .ini file, I'd really appreciate it.

Here's the session section of my php.ini file:

[code][Session]
; Handler used to store/retrieve data.
session.save_handler = files

; Argument passed to save_handler.  In the case of files, this is the path
; where data files are stored. Note: Windows users have to change this
; variable in order to use PHP's session functions.
;
; As of PHP 4.0.1, you can define the path as:
;
;     session.save_path = "N;/path"
;
; where N is an integer.  Instead of storing all the session files in
; /path, what this will do is use subdirectories N-levels deep, and
; store the session data in those directories.  This is useful if you
; or your OS have problems with lots of files in one directory, and is
; a more efficient layout for servers that handle lots of sessions.
;
; NOTE 1: PHP will not create this directory structure automatically.
;         You can use the script in the ext/session dir for that purpose.
; NOTE 2: See the section on garbage collection below if you choose to
;         use subdirectories for session storage
;
; The file storage module creates files using mode 600 by default.
; You can change that by using
;
session.save_path = C:\apache2triad\temp
;
; where MODE is the octal representation of the mode. Note that this
; does not overwrite the process's umask.
;session.save_path = "/tmp"

; Whether to use cookies.
session.use_cookies = 1

; This option enables administrators to make their users invulnerable to
; attacks which involve passing session ids in URLs; defaults to 0.
; session.use_only_cookies = 1

; Name of the session (used as cookie name).
session.name = PHPSESSID

; Initialize session on request startup.
session.auto_start = 0

; Lifetime in seconds of cookie or, if 0, until browser is restarted.
session.cookie_lifetime = 0

; The path for which the cookie is valid.
session.cookie_path = /

; The domain for which the cookie is valid.
session.cookie_domain = http://localhost/

; Handler used to serialize data.  php is the standard serializer of PHP.
session.serialize_handler = php

; Define the probability that the 'garbage collection' process is started
; on every session initialization.
; The probability is calculated by using gc_probability/gc_divisor,
; e.g. 1/100 means there is a 1% chance that the GC process starts
; on each request.

session.gc_probability = 1
session.gc_divisor     = 100

; After this number of seconds, stored data will be seen as 'garbage' and
; cleaned up by the garbage collection process.
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440

; NOTE: If you are using the subdirectory option for storing session files
;       (see session.save_path above), then garbage collection does *not*
;       happen automatically.  You will need to do your own garbage
;       collection through a shell script, cron entry, or some other method.
;       For example, the following script would is the equivalent of
;       setting session.gc_maxlifetime to 1440 (1440 seconds = 24 minutes):
;          cd /path/to/sessions; find -cmin +24 | xargs rm

; PHP 4.2 and less have an undocumented feature/bug that allows you to
; to initialize a session variable in the global scope, albeit register_globals
; is disabled.  PHP 4.3 and later will warn you, if this feature is used.
; You can disable the feature and the warning separately. At this time,
; the warning is only displayed, if bug_compat_42 is enabled.

session.bug_compat_42 = 1
session.bug_compat_warn = 1

; Check HTTP Referer to invalidate externally stored URLs containing ids.
; HTTP_REFERER has to contain this substring for the session to be
; considered as valid.
session.referer_check =

; How many bytes to read from the file.
session.entropy_length = 0

; Specified here to create the session id.
session.entropy_file =

;session.entropy_length = 16

;session.entropy_file = /dev/urandom

; Set to {nocache,private,public,} to determine HTTP caching aspects
; or leave this empty to avoid sending anti-caching headers.
session.cache_limiter = nocache

; Document expires after n minutes.
session.cache_expire = 180

; trans sid support is disabled by default.
; Use of trans sid may risk your users security.
; Use this option with caution.
; - User may send URL contains active session ID
;   to other person via. email/irc/etc.
; - URL that contains active session ID may be stored
;   in publically accessible computer.
; - User may access your site with the same session ID
;   always using URL stored in browser's history or bookmarks.
session.use_trans_sid = 0

; Select a hash function
; 0: MD5   (128 bits)
; 1: SHA-1 (160 bits)
session.hash_function = 0

; Define how many bits are stored in each character when converting
; the binary hash data to something readable.
;
; 4 bits: 0-9, a-f
; 5 bits: 0-9, a-v
; 6 bits: 0-9, a-z, A-Z, "-", ","
session.hash_bits_per_character = 4

; The URL rewriter will look for URLs in a defined set of HTML tags.
; form/fieldset are special; if you include them here, the rewriter will
; add a hidden <input> field with the info which is otherwise appended
; to URLs.  If you want XHTML conformity, remove the form entry.
; Note that all valid entries require a "=", even if no value follows.
url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=,fieldset="[/code]

[Daen]

*bump*

Anybody got any ideas on this?