mod_session_cookie Cookie based session support Extension mod_session_cookie.c session_cookie_module Available in Apache 2.3 and later Warning

The session modules make use of HTTP cookies, and as such can fall victim to Cross Site Scripting attacks, or expose potentially private information to clients. Please ensure that the relevant risks have been taken into account before enabling the session functionality on your server.

This submodule of mod_session provides support for the storage of user sessions on the remote browser within HTTP cookies.

Using cookies to store a session removes the need for the server or a group of servers to store the session locally, or collaborate to share a session, and can be useful for high traffic environments where a server based session might be too resource intensive.

If session privacy is required, the mod_session_crypto module can be used to encrypt the contents of the session before writing the session to the client.

For more details on the session interface, see the documentation for the mod_session module.

 mod_session mod_session_crypto mod_session_dbd
Basic Examples

To create a simple session and store it in a cookie called session, configure the session as follows:

Browser based session Session On
SessionCookieName session path=/

For more examples on how the session can be configured to be read from and written to by a CGI application, see the mod_session examples section.

For documentation on how the session can be used to store username and password details, see the mod_auth_form module.

SessionCookieName Name and attributes for the RFC2109 cookie storing the session SessionCookieName name attributes none server config virtual host directory .htaccess

The SessionCookieName directive specifies the name and optional attributes of an RFC2109 compliant cookie inside which the session will be stored. RFC2109 cookies are set using the Set-Cookie HTTP header.

An optional list of cookie attributes can be specified, as per the example below. These attributes are inserted into the cookie as is, and are not interpreted by Apache. Ensure that your attributes are defined correctly as per the cookie specification.

Cookie with attributes Session On
SessionCookieName session path=/private;domain=example.com;httponly;secure;version=1;
 SessionCookieName2 Name and attributes for the RFC2965 cookie storing the session SessionCookieName2 name attributes none server config virtual host directory .htaccess

The SessionCookieName2 directive specifies the name and optional attributes of an RFC2965 compliant cookie inside which the session will be stored. RFC2965 cookies are set using the Set-Cookie2 HTTP header.

An optional list of cookie attributes can be specified, as per the example below. These attributes are inserted into the cookie as is, and are not interpreted by Apache. Ensure that your attributes are defined correctly as per the cookie specification.

Cookie2 with attributes Session On
SessionCookieName2 session path=/private;domain=example.com;httponly;secure;version=1;
 SessionCookieRemove Control for whether session cookies should be removed from incoming HTTP headers SessionCookieRemove On|Off SessionCookieRemove Off server config virtual host directory .htaccess

The SessionCookieRemove flag controls whether the cookies containing the session will be removed from the headers during request processing.

In a reverse proxy situation where the Apache server acts as a server frontend for a backend origin server, revealing the contents of the session cookie to the backend could be a potential privacy violation. When set to on, the session cookie will be removed from the incoming HTTP headers.