CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#asp.net-mvc
Jaguir
Jaguir

Reputation: 3690

Is there a way to access another session via its ID and read it's session variables?

This application is running in a load balanced environment. It uses a SQL database as the session store. The app is simple and does not have it's own database.

I have created an endpoint to be called from another internal server that knows the SessionId. I want this endpoint to be able to grab a session variable by SessionId instead of from the current session.

I know that I could create a new database to do this, but it would be overkill as it would only have 1 table with 2 fields, SessionId and the one value related to it. I could even put this table in the current session database. I am trying to avoid having to add database connection code if at all possible.

Is there a way to access the variables of a different session other than the current session?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1312

Answers (1)

Philip P.
Philip P.

Reputation: 1212

I might be wrong and if I am - downvote; the fact that the session state storage is database-based (and not in-memory) does not change the principles of how the IHttpSessionState works. I doubt you will be able to do that and I doubt you actually want to: you simply cannot access an absolutely separate context from a different context. Doing so has a lot of potential issues (thread safety, problems if the session state implementation is changed and so on). Your web application might not be aware of the session state store.

For example, if I simply use session state and have the session state configured directly in IIS, there is no way for the application thread to know it's in the database which immediately presents an issue: what if I decide to run the same application without the DB-backed session state? No changes to application code are required, just IIS reconfiguration. It might introduce unexpected behavior and/or runtime errors.

The suggestion (in the comment) to set the cookie to the known session ID is the only "way out" but from the security perspective it's less than optimal.

However, what you are trying to implement seems like a proper job for a Cache Provider. You can use SqlCacheDependency from System.Web.Caching to use the database for your cache. Then you could use the aforementioned SessionId as one of the cache identifiers.

Upvotes: 1

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