session timeout in php code and in htaccess?

Question

What we use to set the session time out in php. I found following:

ini_set(session.cookie_lifetime, 3600);
ini_set(session.gc_maxlifetime, 3600);

Is it right way to set timeout for session in php? Or is there any way we can set the time out in htaccess file?

Maybe its a simple question, but I am not really able to get the answer, even tried on SO, Google and php.net but no straight solutions or code for this.

If I'll add this to top of the page then will it set the session timeout every time? — djmzfKnm, Mar 05 '11 at 19:10
Note that these do not really control a session’s lifetime (see *[How do I expire a PHP session after 30 minutes?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/520237/how-do-i-expire-a-php-session-after-30-minutes/1270960#1270960)*). — Gumbo, Mar 19 '11 at 12:59
I found that in php 5.2 that the above didnt work unless I added quotes around the values... ie... ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime', '3600'); ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime', '3600'); — AdamJones, Mar 12 '13 at 12:22

score 22 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 19 '11 at 12:56

22

I have resolved this issue by adding following code in my .htaccess file.

<IfModule mod_php5.c>
    #Session timeout
    php_value session.cookie_lifetime 1200
    php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 1200
</IfModule>

Thanks!

answered Mar 19 '11 at 12:56

djmzfKnm

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score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

You can set the lifetime value to 0

session.cookie_lifetime 1200

session.cookie_lifetime specifies the lifetime of the cookie in seconds which is sent to the browser.

The value 0 means "until the browser is closed."

session.gc_maxlifetime 1440

session.gc_maxlifetime specifies the number of seconds after which data will be seen as "garbage" and potentially cleaned up. Garbage collection may occur during session start

session timeout in php code and in htaccess?

2 Answers2

The value 0 means "until the browser is closed."

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