codeigniter inactivity session logout

Question

I would like to know how to proceed for the application to log out when the user is idle for a few minutes. I researched a few things, but found nothing that could help.

I am using codeigniter 3.

Thank you.

Answer 1

If you want to make sure that, after an interval of inactivity, the user will be sent to login page, you could use an ajax to call a logged function in your controller that will assess whether the user's session is still valid.

setInterval(function(){ 
    $.getJSON('url/to/controller/logged', function(response) {
        if (typeof response.redirect != 'undefined') {
            window.location.href = response.redirect;
         }
    });
}, <INTERVAL-IN-MILLISECONDS>);

To make that uniform, you could extend the original CI_Controller class to a class named MY_Controller, under application/core/MY_Controller.php, that will be used to extend every credential protected controller of yours. Every time any function in your controller is called, the not_logged_in() function will be called first. If the session has expired, it will handle redirection according to the type of call. Otherwise it will work normally.

class MY_Controller extends CI_Controller{

    public function __construct(){
        parent::__construct();
        $this->not_logged_in();
    }

    private function not_logged_in(){
        $is_logged_in = $this->session->userdata('is_logged_in');

        // The cookie was not found or has expired
        if(!isset($is_logged_in) || $is_logged_in != true)
        {
            /* AJAX request check 
             * If it is not a AJAX request then redirects to login page
             */
            if( ! $this->input->is_ajax_request()) {
                redirect('login');
            } else{ // send and JSON message to redirect
                echo json_encode(array(
                    'status' => FALSE, 
                    'message' => 'Your session expired. Please, login.', 
                    'redirect' => base_url('login')
                ));
                exit();
            }
        }
    }

    public function logged()
    {
        // Request coming from AJAX call
        if($this->input->is_ajax_request()) {
            echo json_encode(array('status' => TRUE, 'message' => 'You are still logged in.'));
        } 
        else {
            show_404(); 
        }
    }

}

The only thing you would need to change in your login class would be adding the is_logged_in field in your cookie.

class Login extends CI_Controller{

    // function called to validate credentials
    public function validate()
    {
        // ... code to validate login

        // If the user is validated
        $data = array(
            'is_logged_in' => true,
            ... // more user data, if you will
        ); 

        $this->session->set_userdata($data);
    }
}