# Accessing session data from another application **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 7, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423 "2008-07-07T21:26:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423/1 "2008-07-07T21:26:44Z")
Hi, I have my main Rails site running and the user\_id is stored inside the session. How can I access that info from within another application? How do I decypher the session? ---
**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 10:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423/2 "2008-07-07T22:54:59Z")
On Jul 7, 8:26 pm, Fernando P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi, > > I have my main Rails site running and the user\_id is stored inside the > session. How can I access that info from within another application? > > How do I decypher the session? What session store are you using? Fred ---
**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 12:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423/3 "2008-07-08T00:21:14Z")
Frederick C. wrote: > On Jul 7, 8:26�pm, Fernando P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I have my main Rails site running and the user\_id is stored inside the > > session. How can I access that info from within another application? > > > > How do I decypher the session? > > What session store are you using? > > Fred If you use :cookie\_session\_store (the default in Rails2), and use the same application secret between the two applications, and you set a domain specific cookie, both should be able to access the same cookie. config.action\_controller.session = { :session\_key =\> ‘\_my\_app\_session’, :secret =\> ‘8ab332268appf980149adb591f20bfbb219a2029c5d7ee3c55c7a7439f6aed24d8a787591522adb1b2e16bd83b648642cf0ccfbfb10528bd4f47b9551012c1d’ } config.action\_controller.session\_store = :cookie\_session\_store config.action\_controller.session\_options[:session\_domain] = “[mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com)” if you have that the same in both, and your two applications run on [app1.mydomain.com](http://app1.mydomain.com) and [app2.mydomain.com](http://app2.mydomain.com) that should be sufficient… let me know if I’m wrong. Mj [http://workingwithrails.com/person/12394-matthew-rudy-jacobs](http://workingwithrails.com/person/12394-matthew-rudy-jacobs) ---
**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 10:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423/4 "2008-07-08T10:53:56Z")
On 8 Jul 2008, at 09:40, Fernando P. wrote: > Hi thanks for your answers. > > I am using cookie based session store. My second app is not a Rails > app, > it a php script. So from that php script how can I use the secret key > “8ab…” to decrypt the info inside the session? It’s not a decryption key (ie the session is not encrypted). Consider a typical session: BAh7BzoPdGV4cGVydF9pZGkE1pM2MiIKZmxhc2hJQzonQWN0aW9uQ29udHJv%0AbGx lcjo6Rmxhc2g6OkZsYXNoSGFzaHsABjoKQHVzZWR7AA%3D %3D–3729a7892e049aafce7e6e4db4210 84f5886e4a9 The first bit (before the --) is the session itself. The second part is a cryptographically strong checksum of that data (using the secret set in environment.rb) The session data is just a Marshal.dump of the session, base64 encoded. In ruby you can load it with Marshal .load (CGI .unescape ( “BAh7BzoPdGV4cGVydF9pZGkE1pM2MiIKZmxhc2hJQzonQWN0aW9uQ29udHJv %0AbGxlcjo6Rmxhc2g6OkZsYXNoSGFzaHsABjoKQHVzZWR7AA%3D %3D”).unpack(‘m\*’).first) The hard bit for your php app will be implementing Marshal.load (if you’re lucky, someone has already done this). Fred ---
**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 10:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423/5 "2008-07-08T10:55:47Z")
Fernando P. wrote: > Hi thanks for your answers. > > I am using cookie based session store. My second app is not a Rails app, > it a php script. So from that php script how can I use the secret key > “8ab…” to decrypt the info inside the session? > > Best regards, hmm… maybe ignore that then. so what is your setup, what is your requirement? If you can access the same database, then you could do something like adding a column add\_column :users, :session\_key, :string then when someone logs in current\_session\_key = @current\_user.set\_session\_key # create a random, unique string, and save it cookie[:my\_session\_key] = {:domain =\> “[mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com)”, :value =\> current\_session\_key} then in the php app you’ll get sent the “my\_session\_key” cookie and do the equivalent of User.find\_by\_session\_key(cookie[:my\_session\_key]) ---
**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423/6 "2008-07-08T13:19:01Z")
My users are currently logging in using restful\_authentication inside the rails app, so what I want is to retrieve the user\_id from within my php app so that I can identify who is the user who is sending me the request. The best solution would be to find a way to unmarshal the cookie data from within php, but if that is too complicated to do (although the data is only a string) then I will use Mat’s solution. ---
**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 10:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-session-data-from-another-application/142423/7 "2008-07-08T10:40:29Z")
Hi thanks for your answers. I am using cookie based session store. My second app is not a Rails app, it a php script. So from that php script how can I use the secret key “8ab…” to decrypt the info inside the session? Best regards,