session timeout in php code and in htaccess?

Question

What we use to set the session time out in php. I found following:

ini_set(session.cookie_lifetime, 3600);
ini_set(session.gc_maxlifetime, 3600);

Is it right way to set timeout for session in php? Or is there any way we can set the time out in htaccess file?

Maybe its a simple question, but I am not really able to get the answer, even tried on SO, Google and php.net but no straight solutions or code for this.

Answer 1

I have resolved this issue by adding following code in my .htaccess file.

<IfModule mod_php5.c>
    #Session timeout
    php_value session.cookie_lifetime 1200
    php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 1200
</IfModule>

Thanks!

Answer 2

You can set the lifetime value to 0

session.cookie_lifetime 1200

session.cookie_lifetime specifies the lifetime of the cookie in seconds which is sent to the browser.

The value 0 means "until the browser is closed."

session.gc_maxlifetime 1440

session.gc_maxlifetime specifies the number of seconds after which data will be seen as "garbage" and potentially cleaned up. Garbage collection may occur during session start