How do I set cookie expiration to session in C# - c#

I am creating a website, and I'm not sure how to use sessions with cookies.
When sessions timeout, I want to show the username and time of the user; for e.g., username stored in cookies and session. When sessions timeout the username must be retrived from the cookies.

Lets put things in perspective first.
A session is the session a user is experiencing when he is using the website.
How it works is basically a user starts a session with the web server, the web server then gives it a key of the session and sets a timeout for the session which are stored as a cookie.
Since this process is automatic and you can only configure it in web.config (unless you are asp.net core vNext, which I doubt) with sessionState https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/h6bb9cz9%28v=vs.80%29.aspx
A normal HttpCookie on another hand is something you set on your Response object and can give it a specific expiration date like this:
HttpCookie myCookie = new HttpCookie("MyTestCookie");
DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
// Set the cookie value.
myCookie.Value = now.ToString();
// Set the cookie expiration date.
myCookie.Expires = now.AddMinutes(1);
// Add the cookie.
Response.Cookies.Add(myCookie);
Which suits your needs more likely.
If you want more information about sessions expiration I'd also suggest you check out http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TroubleshootingExpiredASPNETSessionStateAndYourOptions.aspx

Related

Combine server-side and client-side authentication with WebAPI

I have a legacy ASP.NET webforms application in which users login via a form that is processed server-side. If the entered username + password match to credentials in the database, I set some values in the sessions (e.g., the current user ID) and perform a Response.Redirect afterwards. I'm also creating a HttpCookie for a "automatically relog me next time I visit" functionality.
Currently, I'm also adding WebApi support into that web application. I've managed to implement token authentication which allows me to login on the client side.
How can I combine both authentication approaches? I want to the user to enter his credentials once, get authenticated on the server side and on the client side an redirect the users to another page after authenticating.
The following code will create a cookie to keep user logged in.
// login etc
if (chkRemember.Checked)
{
// calculate the total number of minutes in 20 days to use as the time out.
int timeout = (int)TimeSpan.FromDays(30).TotalMinutes;
// create an authentication ticket
FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(txtUserName.Text, true, timeout);
// Encrypt the ticket
string encrptedTicked = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket);
// create the cookie for the ticket, and put the ticket inside
HttpCookie cookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encrptedTicked);
// give cookie and ticket same expiration
cookie.Expires = ticket.Expiration;
// Attach cookie to current response. it will now to the client and then back to the webserver with every request
HttpContext.Current.Response.Cookies.Set(cookie);
// send the user to the originally requested page.
string requestedPage = FormsAuthentication.GetRedirectUrl(txtUserName.Text, false);
Response.Redirect(requestedPage, true);
}
else
{
// login without saving cookie to client
FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(txtUserName.Text, false);
}
You can use token based authentication in webapi using Angular JS. Visit following link
http://www.dotnetcurry.com/aspnet/1223/secure-aspnet-web-api-using-tokens-owin-angularjs

Session lost after login

On my website
Filling form before login save data in Session
Login Using Linkedin ID
after login at Pageload taking data from session then inserting into SQL data base
My problem is some times I am getting session and other times I am not getting session (Session Lost) ( mostly when 3-4 people testing at the same time... 2-3 get session and 1-2 not getting session)
Can any one tell me what is the problem? How can I solve this problem?
Any another way to do this task?
Stroing in session before login
Session["sesObjFundRaiseSeek"] = objFundRaiseSeek;
Getting after login
if (Session["sesObjSellSeekBL"] != null)
{
clsSellSeekBL ObjSellSeekBL = (clsSellSeekBL)Session["sesObjSellSeekBL"];
}
Is it a problem with your sessions timing out after a very short period of time? You can input the default session timeout within the web.config. This is done right under system.web. Here is an example where 480 is the number of minutes:
<sessionState timeout="480"></sessionState>
For more information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/h6bb9cz9(v=vs.71).aspx
An alternate solution is to use Cookies. I would recommend using Cookies to store user state information. Since Cookies are stored on the users computer, it is easier to configure:
I set to expiration date to 100000 days later in the example below:
HttpCookie myCookie = new HttpCookie("sesObjSellSeekBL");
myCookie.Value = Convert.ToString(user_id); //store the user id here at the very least
myCookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(100000d);
Response.Cookies.Add(myCookie);
Here is how you check your Cookie:
if (Request.Cookies["sesObjSellSeekBL"] != null)
Here is how you log the user out:
HttpCookie myCookie = new HttpCookie("sesObjSellSeekBL");
myCookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1d);
Response.Cookies.Add(myCookie);

Cookies don't persist after refresh

I am using c# and mvc. I am trying to write a cookie to the user browser. But after a refresh of the browser the cookie disappears.
This is my code for writing the cookie:
movieCookie = new HttpCookie(cookieName);
movieCookie.Value = "test;
movieCookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(30);
//add the cookie
HttpContext.Current.Response.Cookies.Add(movieCookie);
and the one for reading the cookie:
//check if such cookie exist
HttpCookie movieCookie = null;
if (HttpContext.Current.Request.Cookies.AllKeys.Contains(cookieName))
movieCookie = HttpContext.Current.Request.Cookies[cookieName];
Another thing to add is that when I searched "AllKeys" like so:
HttpContext.Current.Request.Cookies.AllKeys
it shows an empty string array, for some reason.
any ideas?
Some possibly silly questions
Check your web-servers time and date, are they set correctly, if they are (in your case) 2 years out it will expire cookies immediately.
Check that cookieName is the same
Check that after setting the cookie to the response your not redirecting before the cookie is set. For a cookie to be set you need to set headers and push them out.
I solved it. It appears that in MVC the "return view" after the cookie creation, cause the cookie not to be saved.

FormsAuthenticationTicket expiration

I have been searching the web and found many odd answers and i've tried almost all of them.
My problem is this. My login page contains:
FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(1, userName, DateTime.Now, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(min), persistCookie, userid.ToString());
string encTicket = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket);
HttpCookie cookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encTicket);
cookie.Expires = ticket.Expiration;
Response.Cookies.Add(cookie);
FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(userName, persistCookie);
Now the min value is per user based and can be set individually, so is persistCookie.
After what i understand this code should result in the possibillity of overriding the default values in web.config. Which should be 30 minutes.
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="~/Default/default.aspx" defaultUrl="~/User/UserMain.aspx"/>
</authentication>
min is currenlty set to 120, and persistCookie is set too true. When i log in i get timeout at 30 minutes. (Not session, so somewhere expiration date is set, because if it was not set the cookie should be session based, also i do not get 120 minutes which is kind of the deal here)
My question, for simplifying it, is how do i get the value 'min' to be the expiry date of the cookie?
This might turn out too be a simple thing but i am currently totally stuck so any help would be appriciated.
EDIT:
I changed the login logic to this:
FormsAuthenticationTicket fat = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(1, userName, DateTime.Now, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(min), persistCookie, userid.ToString());
string encTicket = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(fat);
Response.Cookies.Add(new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encTicket) { Expires = fat.Expiration });
Response.Redirect(FormsAuthentication.GetRedirectUrl(userName, false));
And now it works. But i cant seem to figure out why this would work, and not the previous one.
Ticket creation is the same, the only difference is that i add Expires property of the HttpCookie when creating the HttpCookie, not after the object is made.
If anybody has a good explanation i am all ears! :)
The problem with your code is that you're calling RedirectFromLoginPage, which will create the forms authentication cookie, overwriting the cookie you've just created:
HttpCookie cookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encTicket);
cookie.Expires = ticket.Expiration;
Response.Cookies.Add(cookie);
FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(userName, persistCookie); <-- creates a new cookie
The cookie created by RedirectFromLoginPage will of course have the default timeout taken from configuration.
Your second version is the way to go.
I think you don't understand the difference between cookie expiration and ticket expiration dates - ticket can be considered as expired even if the cookie it is being stored in is still valid. The 4th param of FormsAuthenticationTicket constructor is responsible for the ticket expiration date.
So, to answer your question, you need to manually set expiration date of your cookie or make it long enough to exceed expiration date of your authentication ticket.

How to remove all expired cookie from CookieCollection?

How to remove all expired cookie from a CookieCollection ?
Try this.
var cookies = Request.Cookies;
foreach (HttpCookie cookie in cookies)
{
if (cookie.Expires < DateTime.Now)
{
Request.Cookies.Remove(cookie.Name);
}
}
Please note the excerpt from MSDN,
Calling the Remove method of the Cookies collection removes the cookie
from the collection on the server side, so the cookie will not be sent
to the client. However, the method does not remove the cookie from the
client if it already exists there.
You cannot directly delete a cookie on a user's computer. However, you can direct the user's browser to delete the cookie by setting the cookie's expiration date to a past date. The next time a user makes a request to a page within the domain or path that set the cookie, the browser will determine that the cookie has expired and remove it.
if (Request.Cookies["UserSettings"] != null)
{
HttpCookie myCookie = new HttpCookie("UserSettings");
myCookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1);//add -1 days
Response.Cookies.Add(myCookie);
}
The way you remove a cookie is to change it expire date to some thing that has already passed.. but a expired cookie should never be sent from the browser in the first case...

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