sessions

Anon

I´m building a login page - pretty stupid one.I´m used to run my scripts in Apache but the server I´m using runs IIS 4.

The login takes place perfectly, I even register the session values but, when I redirect to the main page, the session doen´t go with it. I have to log twice so I can use the session...
What am I doing wrong?

Anon

With Apache it works, with IIS it doesn´t..
Why is that?
It bugs me..

Anon

with apache i'm assuming you are using the php module, and with IIS, i'm assuming you are using php as cgi.

I am also assuming that your login scripts works by checking the values and then doing a header("Location: blah")...

the problem isn't between IIS and apache, it is between the php module and php as cgi.

i already posted this as a bug to the php developers and they told me not to use windows!

Anon

Thank you...
Just as I suspected, windows isn´t a good server platafrom, especially using IIS.
I´ve bein trying to change the Plataform from Win NT4 to a red hat linux. The problem is that we have a couple of ASP programers and they are reluctant about changing script languages.

Anon

yeah, i just use win box for dev on my desktop machine... linux can't compete for office and gaming stuff, so my desktop will always be windows, but the real server in slackware. the thing that sucks though, is using the same gives different results, which is the WORST KIND OF BUG THERE IS!! ... but zend ignores it!

this makes having a dummy windows server for testing almost pointless, because i can't trust the results.

Anon

I know it´s kind of pointless to ask but, would you know a work around the session bug?

And about the windows Dev machine, the funiest fing is: I´ve always coded on a Win 98 or 95 and never had problems porting the code for Linux, but, the only times I got trouble was when I ported to Win 2K or win NT. As I said, I´m writing a project for the change of the OS from NT4 to Conectiva Linux (a brasilian brand based on Red Hat) and the scripting language to PHP. It´s a tough fight thought. They are used to ASP and Click-to-Click server interface. I already changed the MS Access DBs to a decent MySQL...
If you, or anybody coulde help me, giving good reasons to port from IIS 4 to the combination Linux,Apache, PHP4, MySQL, your help is more than welcome.

Thanks for your time
Fernando Michelotti

fseesink

Quick note: It would be very helpful when posting problems to specify your EXACT configuration. You say you're using IIS4, which indicates MS Windows NT 4. However, it's often helpful to say something like

"I am running the Brasilian Portuguese version of MS Windows NT 4 SP5, IIS4, and the PHP v.4.0.4 CGI module."

Anyway, that aside, I believe your issue may have nothing to do with the header() function and everything to do with a well-known session bug in the Windows PHP engine. For details, see my initial bug report

http://www.php.net/bugs.php?id=5493

and followup bug report when the same damn bug resurfaced

http://www.php.net/bugs.php?id=8989

I have not yet tested 4.0.5, but in a nutshell, the last working Windows version of PHP that did sessions properly was the 4.0.3pl1 CGI module. I never verified the ISAPI module on that either, but when time permits, I will.

The problem is basically that session IDs do not transfer from page to page. But it only occurs every so many pages. It's weird. If you create the page1.PHP-page4.php files, then load page1.php and follow the links, you will see that new session files keep being generated (and since they are new sessions, the variables registered are basically null). Please note that I am assuming you are just using session files, as opposed to overwriting the functions so that you log session ids into a database, etc.

Which reminds me. Make sure you have configured PHP.INI in the \WINNT directory so that it points to a valid directory for session files. For example, I created a directory "sessions" in the E:\InetPub directory. I then set the appropriate entry in PHP.INI:

...
session.save_path = "E:\InetPub\sessions" ;
...

This is VERY important. By default, this parameter is NOT set properly, as "/tmp" is not valid in Windows.

Assuming you have your box configured properly, the only thing to watch is what version of PHP you are using. Again, I have not tested all the versions yet, but the last known version to work properly was the 4.0.3pl1 CGI module. If you configure your system with this version (NOT using the ISAPI module mind you), it should work. It does for me, both under the English versions of Windows NT4 SP5/IIS4 and Windows 2000/IIS5 (with either SP1 or SP2).

Hope that helps at least a little. I've been teaching a friend of mine ASP (VBScript basically) so he can try to land a job doing basic web development, and I'll tell ya, I do not like it. I think PHP is FAR easier to use. So hopefully you can get those people converted to PHP. As for reasons, where to begin? :-)

Anyway, good luck with Conectiva. I wish you success.

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