In order to use the Session class you are required to set an encryption key in your config file

Question

I am in the process of upgrading codeigniter from 1.7.2 to 2.0.1.

Everything seems to have gone ok except I get

In order to use the Session class you are required to set an encryption key in your config file.

What is the change in 2.0.0/2.0.1 that has caused this?

What change do I need to make to fix this.

Will making said change break anything?

score 24 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 09 '18 at 20:53

24

The reason they ask for an encryption key is security (obviously)

Note: Even if you are not using encrypted sessions, you must set an encryption key in your config file which is used to aid in preventing session data manipulation. - source: https://www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/sessions.html

This modification won't break your code. But be careful when updating from 1.7.2 to 2.0.1. I suggest you to backup your code :)

BTW they added this security improvement with the 2.0.0 version of CI. I don't know why they don't mention it in their upgrade guide though :(

edited Nov 09 '18 at 20:53

Stack Programmer

answered Mar 22 '11 at 00:57

Thomas Menga

OH hello again, You look oddly familiar! it's strange that the need for an encryption key was not specified in the upgrade guide that you so kindly linked me to ;D – Hailwood Mar 22 '11 at 01:01
yeah that's weird, but I'm not a CI-guy so I wasn't aware of that encryption key :D – Thomas Menga Mar 22 '11 at 01:04
Just an avid google'r? And yeah, I have backed up my code, Just trying to get everything up and running as fast as possible, broken code = `>:|` boss! – Hailwood Mar 22 '11 at 01:06
I'm a Kohana user... A long time ago, it was very close to CI. And they still have some things in common ;) – Thomas Menga Mar 22 '11 at 01:07

score 20 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 22 '11 at 00:57

20

add this to your config.php

$config['encryption_key'] = 'your_encryption_key_here';

answered Mar 22 '11 at 00:57

Vamsi Krishna B

what is defined here in place of your_encryption_key_here? – Mohit Kumar Sep 10 '19 at 11:31

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 09 '14 at 10:26

./application/config/config.php

Encryption Key
---------------------

If you use the Encryption class or the Session class you MUST set an encryption key. See the user guide for info.

$config['encryption_key'] = '02527-269-2503946-70386-34730519';

3 Answers3