Killing sessions

vypergal

Hi. I am trying to kill sessions that are due to the closing of windows by users. I am using PHP, Apache with SSL support as well as MySQL

At present, my system logs users that logs to a database as well as build unique sessions for each unique user. My system works fine when users log off by clicking 'exit'. This action kills the session build especially for this user as well as to remove this user from the temporary log. (Each user can only log from one window at any one time in time)

But when a user just closes the window, the session for that user is not killed and the user is not removed from the temporary log.

Is there any way I can make it such that if the user closes the window, its session will be killed and the user will be removed from the temporary log? The temporary log is created in a MySQL database.

Please advice. Thanks in advanced.

suntra

Well, you have two choices.

The first, you make a little JavaScript... in the <BODY> tag of your page, you put OnUnLoad="function_name();" where function_name() is a function you defined in the page and that opens a window with a URL which will make the user log off. The disadvantage of this is that the user can be very quick and close the window before the page is called or loaded. Also, if JavaScript is not activated.... !

The second. In your database, make a new field that will contain the date and hour of the last time the user consulter your page(s). If the difference between "now" and that date is bigger than a certain timeout (let's say 20 minutes), you make him log out.

Is this clear ?

vypergal

Hi. I am interested in the second option (using a database to define the time out period). Could you provide a more elaborated solution? I am relatively new in this area.
Where do I define this timeout function? Please elaborate.
Thanks in advanced.

suntra

It makes a lot of time I didn't not do MySQL !

But what to do is this :

Create a column (I think it's the right term.... You know, | Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | New column) which will contain a number.
When a user logs in or visits a page and he's already logged in, take the current time and put in the new MySQL column. I suggest you to take this code to "take" the current time :
```
$current_time = ereg_replace("^.* ", "", microtime());
```
It gives the current microtime, i.e. the number of seconds since January 1st 1970.
When any user logs in or visits a page, you "query" MySQL with something like (NOT A REAL MYSQL QUERY) : " SET is_logged_in = 0 WHERE logged_at < " . ($current_time - 20*60)

-- OR --

You create an automated task (with, for example, Cron) which will verify every minute or 5 minutes or whatever if there are expired timeouts...

I'd like to give you a more elaborated code, but I have an exam in 40 minutes and I've to go in 10 minutes ! So... sorry !

coditoergosum

Why not just set the cookie lifetime with session_set_cookie_params?

vypergal

Hi. Thanks for the suggestions.
My system is still not working like how I would like it to. I believe I have done some implementation errors along the way. I would like to correct them but I am really not very sure how to go about doing that.
1. I have changed the gc_session.maxlife to 900(15 mins) but somehow the session still lives even after 900 minutes. why?
2. I think I should log the session id and the associated variables allocated to it into a database. How do I do that? The default path for the session is now placed at "/tmp"
3. I have two types of users, the normal user and the administrator. When a user as well as an administrator log on to the system, only one session id is build. But if another user logs in, a separate session id is build. Question: How come the first user and the administrator shares the same session id?
4. I tested my implementation on both a Linux(Netscape) and Windows(Internet Explorer). (The Apache has a SSL module installed in it). When I use Windows, after a user logs in, no other user can log into the system and even when the same user tries to open another page, he is unable to do so. (This is what I want) But on a Linux system, I am unable to achieve this.
Could someone please explain to me why???
I am very puzzled by all these questions. Thanks in advanced!