Question

Session-Timeout , Tomcat - webapp

Asked by: autoknowledge

Hey all,

We're using tomcat 4.1.24.  I've been trying for the past hour to change the session timeout of our app.  The 30 minute default shouldn't be a problem, but we connected to our server then closed the IE to see if the sessions would be invalidated after 30 minutes.  They were not, so i'm trying to figure out why.

First, does a session timing out mean that everything in that session scope will be invalidated or does it just mean the user has to create a new session.

I tried changing the timeout to 1 minute for testing purposes.  Running the program in JProbe, i was opening a page and then closing IE.  After waiting over a minute(when the session should have timed out) i started garbage collection and checked whether the classes in the session scope were collected, and they were not.  So now i'm thinking that we're not setting the session timeout correctly, or maybe that session timeout doesn't mean the session will be invalidated.

This is the code that I added to our web.xml file:

<session-config>
  <session-timeout>1</session-timeout>
</session-config>

We have multiple web.xml files, but I believe the file we have to add the code to is in the WEB-INF directory, which is parallel with the app directory

basically our app is in tomcat/webapps/dir/app and our WEB-INF is in tomcat/webapps/dir/WEB-INF.
I also tried to add it to ROOT/WEB-INF to no avail.

I've read other posts similar to this, but I haven't read anything about whether the session will be invalidated upon timeout.

Any help is definitely appreciated!

thank you much.

Nathan @ AutoKnowledge

ps. kinda urgent... but only because i'm almost out of hair :)

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2004-02-09 at 15:59:11ID20878998
Tags

tomcat

,

session

,

timeout

Topic

Apache Web Server

Participating Experts
1
Points
80
Comments
5

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Webapp with postgresql
    Hi, I have set up my postgresql in a linux RH7.0 machine. And my Tomcat webapp is on a NT mechine. I have test the postmaster..it runs well. And same to the tomcat. My question is how can I establish the JDBC connection from Tomcat jsp page in Nt to the postgresql in...
  2. TOMCAT web.xml question
    HI, i am running a web server with TOMCAT, My directory strauture is as follows DEFAULTROOT - WEBAPP -IMAGES -FILES if I give "http://myserver/webapp/images/" I am able to see all the image file whcih I do not wnat my client to see, but inst...
  3. tomcat/web.xml and redirecting to another webapp
    Hi, I have a webapplication in a war file (let's call it abc.war) on a website whose domain name is www.def.com I place abc.war in the webapps folder of Tomcat 5.5.9 and it gets unpacked into the abc directory. to access this webapp you would then type: http://www.def.com/...
  4. Using Eclipse as development tool for Tomcat JSP webapp
    I would like to use Eclipse as development tool for JSP websites. Up till now I've been using jEdit, but I want to try Eclipse and see how that works out. In jEdit I just open pages, edit them, etc. In Eclipse I have to use projects, but I'm a bit confused about what to put w...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: vzilkaPosted on 2004-02-10 at 13:23:46ID: 10326441

I don't understand what is the app directory.
I think your web.xml file should be in TOMCAT/WEBAPPS/DIR/WEB-INF
or, if you do not use the auto deploy features of TOMCAT but wrote a context in the server.xml file, TOMCAT/WEBAPPS/DIR/APP/WEB-INF

Theortically the session should be invalidated, but Tomcat may decide it has enough memory and won't run the thread that destroys the sessions.


 

by: autoknowledgePosted on 2004-02-10 at 15:11:07ID: 10327562

Thanks for the response vzilka,

Our JSPs for the application are stored in tomcat/webapps/dir/app, and tomcat/webapps/dir contains the entire application.  I tried placing the code in the web.xml file inside tomcat/webapps/dir/web-inf to no avail.  After a minute of time, i started up JProbe's garbage collector to see if it would collect the objects that were in the expired session.  It didn't collect this un-referenced memory even after quite a few minutes of time and multiple garbage collections.  

vzilka, could you explain what you mean by:

"Theortically the session should be invalidated, but Tomcat may decide it has enough memory and won't run the thread that destroys the sessions."

Do you mean that tomcat may not run session.invalidate() when the session times out?
                                   -or-
Do you mean that session.invalidate() will be run, but the garbage collection may not collect the un-referenced memory right away?

Also, does session.invalidate() just de-reference all of the objects associated with that session?
As long as the memory is unreferenced, I think that I can put a little trust in the garbage collector to someday pick up the trash when the app needs the extra memory.

If tomcat just doesn't invalidate the session at all if it doesn't have to, then is there a way to find out which session has timed out and then manually invalidate it?

Thanks for any help you guys/gals can give.

Nathan @ AK

 

by: vzilkaPosted on 2004-02-10 at 19:57:01ID: 10329279

First of all, you are not alone in this feeling: http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=127074

Concerning your questions. The servlet specification says that the value you specify in the web.xml file is the lifetime of the session. The session is handled by 2 methods - the object on the server side and a cookie called JSessionID which lives for as long as the session timeout.
The browser will delete the cookie - thats no problem.
I suspect that Tomcat will only remove HTTPSessions if it suffers from low memory (call the HTTPSession.invalidate() method). When it does that all objects will be de-references and the next garbage collection act will remove them from memory.

Why should you want to invalidate sessions yourself? Leave it to Tomcat to handle the memory and write your own code.
YOu can, if you really want to, define a SessionListener and keep track of all sessions - but do it only if you really have to.

 

by: autoknowledgePosted on 2004-02-12 at 13:34:14ID: 10347012

Wow, i wasn't expecting the delay between the specified and the actual timeout to be so large.  Even after waiting an extended period of time, our sessions still don't show any signs of timeout.  I guess adding the code from the link you posted might be useful in waiting for the timeout to occur, since it will tell me right when it does.  However, if i never get this msg, then i will have to assume that the timeout isn't setup correctly and try something else.  Unless of course it's memory dependant and won't run until the server is almost out of memory, which would be a tedious task to test.

I have the code:
    <session-config>
        <session-timeout>30</session-timeout>
    </session-config>

in the web.xml files in our C:\jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24\conf directory and C:\jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24\webapps\dir\WEB-INF directories.
If i set this code to 1 minute, i should hope that the timeouts occur sooner that 30 minutes.

If I never get a msg stating that the session timed-out, then i guess that I should try session.setMaxInactiveInterval().  If we put this line at login for every user, would it work the same as setting session-timeout in the web.xml file?  If so, I'd rather get rid of the session-timeout in the web.xml altogether and just add this line to our login since it would make the session timeout a little more concrete.  A SessionListener would definitely be overkill... i really hope it doesn't come to that.

If you can think of anything else that would make this task easier, just let me know.  Thanks again for your help.  

Nathan

 

by: autoknowledgePosted on 2004-02-13 at 13:09:47ID: 10356195

Ok, i think the session.setMaxInactiveInterval() is working fine in our program.  I never could get the session-timeout code in the web.xml file to work.  The code at http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=127074 was a great testing tool to make sure the timeouts were actually taking place.  I hope this helps to solve some of our memory issues.  Thanks for all your help vzilka.

Nathan

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...