sharing session between WARs

Question

Is it possible for the session data of one war file to be shared by other war file

Answer 1

To the point, you just need to configure the server somehow to store the session in a cookie without a path. In case of Tomcat, you can just set emptySessionPath attribute of the <Connector> element to true in /conf/server.xml. Also see this Tomcat Configuration Reference.

<Connector ... emptySessionPath="true">

This however affects all webbaps deployed on the same server.

Update: as you are actually using Websphere (which uses Tomcat under the hoods), you need to alter the Tomcat connector in Websphere's config.xml to include the following attribute:

<attribute name="emptySessionPath">true</attribute>

Answer 2

Its not easy to do. but I have been able to do this using tomcat. Here is a link http://www.fwd.at/tomcat/sharing-session-data-howto.html I'm not sure what server you are using though. Also, why do you need to do this, there may another solution depending on what you need to do.

Answer 3

Tomcat has the Signle-Sign-On Valve:

The Single Sign On Vale is utilized when you wish to give users the ability to sign on to any one of the web applications associated with your virtual host, and then have their identity recognized by all other web applications on the same virtual host.

You may also try to implement single-sign-on using cookies (though this has security drawbacks).