Session configuration

The session data for each visitor is stored on your web server, while a cookie containing a session ID is stored on the visitor's machine. This cookie allows your application to remember the session for that user and retrieve their session data on subsequent requests to your application.

Following session storages are available out of the box:

• File System
• PDO
• Memcached
• APC / APCu
• Redis
• Wincache
• DBA
• Memory (Arrays)

Before using sessions, make sure an application key has been specified in the config.app.php file.

  'session' => array(

      // Session storage 'cookie', 'file', 'pdo', 'memcached', 'apc',
      // 'redis', 'dba', 'wincache', 'memory'
      'storage' => 'file',

      // If using file storage - default is null
      'storage_path' => 'app/MyFirstBlog/_session/',

      // If using the PDO (database) session storage
      'database' => array(
        'storage' => 'sqlite',
        'database' => 'app/MyFirstBlog/_session/blog-session.db',
      ),

      // Garbage collection has a 2% chance of occurring
      // for any given request to the application. Feel free
      // to tune this to your requirements.
      'garbage_collection' => array(2, 100),

      // Session lifetime number of minutes
      'lifetime' => 60,

      // Session expiration on web browser close
      'expire_on_close' => false,

      // Session cookie name
      'cookie' => 'pimf_session',

      // Session cookie path
      'path' => '/',

      // Domain for which the session cookie is available.
      'domain' => null,

      // If the cookie should only be sent over HTTPS.
      'secure' => false,
  ),

Cookie Storage

Cookie based sessions provide a light-weight and fast mechanism for storing session information. They are also secure. Each cookie is encrypted using strong AES-256 encryption. However, cookies have a four kilobyte storage limit, so you may wish to use another storage if you are storing a lot of data in the session. To get started using cookie sessions, just set the storage option in the config.app.php file.

File System Storage

If your application will work great using file system sessions. However, if your application receives heavy traffic or runs on a server farm, use database or Memcached sessions. To get started using file system sessions, just set the storage option in the config.app.php file. File system sessions are stored in the 'app/YourAppName/_session/' directory, so make sure it's writeable.

Database Storage

To start using database sessions, you will first need to configure your database connection. Next, you will need to create a session table. However, you may also use PIMF's command-line to generate the table for you!

php pimf core:create_session_table

Memcached Storage

Before using Memcached sessions, you must configure your Memcached servers. Just set the storage in the config.app.php file.

Redis Storage

Before using Redis sessions, you must configure your Redis servers. Just set the storage in the config.app.php file.

DBA Storage

The DBA is ultra-fast session storage that uses the database (dbm-style) abstraction layer to cache/store your PHP objects, strings, integers or arrays. You don`t have to matter about the size of the cache-file. It depends on the free space of your disk. You have to compile your PHP –enable-dba=shared and –with-[qdbm|flatfile|db4] before using it.

In-Memory Storage

The memory session storage just uses a simple array to store your session data for the current request. This storage is perfect for unit testing your application since nothing is written to disk. It shouldn't ever be used as a real session storage.