How long does a user's session last?

Adrian Cotter

We are using the Single Signon API to login our users to our implementation of a Port Networks social network...

You check it out at http://connect.sierraclub.org (we have 3 sub communities in one network)

I'm learning all the intricacies of trying to do single sign on, and the lastest challenge is this:

The user session expires on the Convio side before the Port's session expires. So a user could be doing things on the Port, but not actually logged into Convio. This may not sound that problematic, but it can be in certain circumstances.

So what I want to do is either -- find a way to cheat the Convio session expiring, or make sure that the Port is going to expire its session at the same time. Does anyone know how long it is?

robert@zakongroup.com

If memory serves, the Convio server times out after 15 minutes. However you can include a 1-pixel image from the Convio server within your server's pages to keep the session going longer. Take a look at the SSO docs which contain additional information on this.

The approach we ended up taking is to force the "remember me" setting and have users sign out when they want to; otherwise our site remembers them for 2 weeks, and then forces them to re-login, going through the SSO authentication once again.

Adrian Cotter

Robert Zakon:

If memory serves, the Convio server times out after 15 minutes. However you can include a 1-pixel image from the Convio server within your server's pages to keep the session going longer. Take a look at the SSO docs which contain additional information on this.

The approach we ended up taking is to force the "remember me" setting and have users sign out when they want to; otherwise our site remembers them for 2 weeks, and then forces them to re-login, going through the SSO authentication once again.

Right, we have that, but that does not help when you have someone entering content. We're using this on a social network where people are discussing, writing stuff, blog posts, comments, trail descriptions. Which can take time.

Also since the social networking vendor does not expire the users time. So we have situations where the two get out sync, you might actually be logged in in one place, but not in Convio.

The other thing is that the remember me doesn't quite work for us given the structure of our site (spread over different servers). Just a AJAX call to check whether or not someone is logged in, does not seem to activate the remember me.

robert@zakongroup.com

Adrian Cotter:

Right, we have that, but that does not help when you have someone entering content. We're using this on a social network where people are discussing, writing stuff, blog posts, comments, trail descriptions. Which can take time.

Also since the social networking vendor does not expire the users time. So we have situations where the two get out sync, you might actually be logged in in one place, but not in Convio.

The other thing is that the remember me doesn't quite work for us given the structure of our site (spread over different servers). Just a AJAX call to check whether or not someone is logged in, does not seem to activate the remember me.

How about the 1-pixel image in a frame that keeps getting automatically reloaded? Not ideal, I know ...

Adrian Cotter

Robert Zakon:

How about the 1-pixel image in a frame that keeps getting automatically reloaded? Not ideal, I know ...

Yeah, I've now been doing that (just through JS, not an iframe). I was hoping for something better.