Forever sessions

Setting up user session tokens so that the session may be refreshed indefinitely without providing credentials again. This is similar to the Facebook model, where a device remains logged into an account forever, unless explicitly logged out.

Background

This tutorial builds on the concepts covered in Logging in, Access using JWT and API Key, and Refreshing a JWT.

You may configure user sessions to never expire if a client sets "remember_me": true at login. This means that a session may be refreshed forever without providing the user's credentials again. The initial session_token will be valid until the token TTL (time-to-live) expires, after which a new session_token value may be obtained by simply refreshing the original session. This may be repeated for the same session indefinitely, or until an explicit logout (session deletion).

Configuration

To set up forever sessions, we will configure DF_ALLOW_FOREVER_SESSIONS and DF_JWT_TTL in the .env file. Note that DF_JWT_REFRESH_TTL will be ignored once DF_ALLOW_FOREVER_SESSIONS is set to true.

The .env file for a DreamFactory instance is located at the installation's root directory. Refer to the example .env-dist file provided in the GitHub repository here.

1. Set DF_ALLOW_FOREVER_SESSIONS

In .env, add or un-comment this line and set the value to true:

DF_ALLOW_FOREVER_SESSIONS=true

2. Set DF_JWT_TTL

In .env, add or un-comment this line and set the value to your desired TTL in minutes. A session refresh will be required to receive a new session_token after this many minutes.

DF_JWT_TTL=720

The above setting will require a session refresh every 12 hours (720 minutes).

3. Clear config

Run this command from the root directory for your DreamFactory instance installation.

php artisan config:clear

Usage

• Users instantiate sessions as documented in the Logging in tutorial.
• A forever session is instantiated if the client sets "remember_me": true at login, as documented in the Logging in tutorial.
• Sessions may be refreshed to receive a new session_token as documented in the Refreshing a JWT tutorial at any time, including after DF_JWT_TTL expires.
• If a session is deleted as documented in the Logging out tutorial, it may no longer be refreshed. Logging in again with valid credentials will be required.