How to make user session go on for 24 hours?

Question

I have messed around with my apache and php.ini file and my site's users still complain about the site logging them out after a very short time or every time they close and open the same browser.

I am running Apache and PHP.

What settings should I have in order to make the users session go for 24 hours so they don't have to re-log in every time?

Thanks, Alex

Answer 1

In php.ini, set:

; 24 hour session cookie
session.cookie_lifetime = 86400

; Prevent server from cleaning up session
; Some value higher than the cookie lifetime
session.gc_maxlifetime = 200000 

Answer 2

Strange. Sessions should stay for quite a long time. Try checking your code for any accidental session_destroy()s.

If that doesn't work, then maybe try using cookies:

setcookie(name, value, expire); 

So, to set a cookie variable in PHP, you would simple use

<?php
    setcookie("MyCookie", "MyValue", time()+60*60*24); 
?>

The expire value is in seconds. Using the code above, you would be able to set a cookie called "MyCookie" with the value "MyValue" and lasts for 24 hours.

To retrieve the value of this cookie, you could use

<?php
    print($_COOKIE['MyValue']);
?>

Note that cookies MUST be set before the tag is called.

If cookies don't work either, then it's probably a problem with your php.ini Can you post your php.ini if cookies don't work?

Hope this helps!