Node.js server restart drops the sessions

Question

I'm having fully functional user signup / authentication system using Express and Connect middleware.

app.use(express.session({store: require('connect').session.MemoryStore( {reapInterval: 60000 * 10} ) }))

The only problem is that sessions drop every time you perform server restart.

nodemon restarts Node.js every time it detects a file change.

How can I have persistent sessions?

I am wondering how to have persistent sessions using JWTs instead of using a database...?? — Alexander Mills, Nov 22 '15 at 08:37

Alfred · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-07T14:14:09.273

24

Like your code is telling you are using MemoryStore. This is volatile and gets cleared on restart. I would advise you to use connect_redis to persist your session. Redis is an extremely fast store.

Download redis
compile redis: make
Start server: ./redis-server
npm install connect-redis

var connect = require('connect') , RedisStore = require('connect-redis');

connect.createServer(
  connect.cookieParser(),
  // 5 minutes
  connect.session({ store: new RedisStore })
);

This is just to get you started quickly. You should read the documentation and configure redis if you want to get most out of redis.

edited Jan 07 '12 at 14:14

answered Mar 12 '11 at 23:27

Alfred

60,935
33
147
186

Just curious why do you use ProperCase for RedisStore, is there a NodeJS convention/reason for this? – Clarence Liu Feb 11 '14 at 01:35
@ClarenceLiu Class names are often chosen to be ProperCase (or CamelCase or what you want to call it). – Domi Apr 30 '14 at 11:51
Ah cool, well camelCase to me starts with a lower case, but I do like this convention. – Clarence Liu May 01 '14 at 19:55

score 14 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 04 '16 at 14:10

I was trying to get Redis on track using express.js, Google sent me here. The express implementation changed:

var express = require('express'),
RedisStore = require('connect-redis')(express);

Another important thing is the order of express configurations.

app.configure(function(){

    app.enable('strict routing'); // removes trailing slash
    app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
    app.set('view engine', 'jqtpl');
    app.register('.html', require('jqtpl').express);
    app.use(express.favicon());
    app.use(express.methodOverride());
    app.use(express.compiler({src: __dirname + '/public', enable: ['sass']}));
    app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
    app.use(app.router);
    app.use(express.bodyParser());
    app.use(express.cookieParser());
    app.use(express.session({secret: _.config.secret, store: new RedisStore}));

});

cookieParser & session configurations need to be at the end of the configurations, and cookieParser must be placed right before express.session.

Hope that helps, I ran in both of these problems.

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 01 '23 at 16:44

8

I agree with everybody about Redis, but I think that different technologies are a problem in terms of software maintenance. If you are using MongoDB for example there is connect-mongo (https://npmjs.org/package/connect-mongo), if you are using MySQL there is connect-MySQL (https://npmjs.org/package/connect-mysql), connect-couchdb for CouchDB (https://npmjs.org/package/connect-couchdb) and so on.

edited Feb 01 '23 at 16:44

Harsh Patel

6,334
10
40
73

answered Oct 03 '13 at 07:20

Hola Soy Edu Feliz Navidad

6,746
4
38
55

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 08 '11 at 21:06

6

also, if you're using express, you need to provide a secret when telling the app to use the redis middleware.

so, follow Alfred's recipe above, but do the following...

var express = require( 'express' );
var RedisStore = require('connect-redis');

app.use( express.cookieParser() );
app.use( express.session( { secret: "keyboard cat", store: new RedisStore }));

answered Apr 08 '11 at 21:06

Meadhbh Oh

61
1

Now you need to add require('connect-redis')(express) - otherwise you get a TypeError: Cannot read property 'session' of undefined. (https://github.com/visionmedia/connect-redis/issues/24) – Christian Landgren Mar 12 '13 at 22:22

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 12 '11 at 22:53

1

When node dies I would imagine the memory store you're using dies.

Persist the sessions to disk?

answered Mar 12 '11 at 22:53

Richard Holland

2,663
2
21
35

3

as redis handles the session in an additional process the session survives node crashes and node restarts, if redis goes down, sessions go down accordingly – ezmilhouse Mar 05 '12 at 12:31

Node.js server restart drops the sessions

5 Answers5

Linked