# Acts\_as\_stateless? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [December 22, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/acts-as-stateless/74355 "2005-12-22T18:29:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M_Daggett)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/acts-as-stateless/74355/1 "2005-12-22T18:29:19Z")
Is there such a thing that I could use to store sessions in the DB instead of in a cookie so that I can ensure users will be able to access their session data even across several load balancers? We use totally stateless machines here at work and I am worried about deploying a rails app in production that uses a volitile session stored on the machine. ## Any help is great! Happy Holidays, Mark ---
**Author:** ![M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M_Daggett)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/acts-as-stateless/74355/2 "2005-12-22T18:38:23Z")
On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 09:26:26AM -0800, M Daggett wrote: > Is there such a thing that I could use to store sessions in the DB > instead of in a cookie so that I can ensure users will be able to > access their session data even across several load balancers? We use > totally stateless machines here at work and I am worried about > deploying a rails app in production that uses a volitile session > stored on the machine. There is the cookie that holds the session key and then there is the session data itself. Rails already ships with a db session store. rake create\_session\_table Then edit your config/environement.rb (uncomment this line): config.action\_controller.session\_store = :active\_record\_store And that’s it. But if you actually don’t even want a cookie (session id passed along on every url?) then you’ll likely have to do some more work. marcel ---
**Author:** ![M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M_Daggett)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/acts-as-stateless/74355/3 "2005-12-22T18:41:24Z")
On Thu, 2005-12-22 at 09:26 -0800, M Daggett wrote: > Is there such a thing that I could use to store sessions in the DB > instead of in a cookie so that I can ensure users will be able to > access their session data even across several load balancers? We use > totally stateless machines here at work and I am worried about > deploying a rails app in production that uses a volitile session > stored on the machine. [http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtoChangeSessionStore](http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtoChangeSessionStore) and though it is a bit old now: [http://scott.elitists.net/sessions.html](http://scott.elitists.net/sessions.html) Thats just for sessions though, I’m not sure stateless is the right phrase or if you’re asking for something else. Also, usually the director in a load balancing cluster can tie a client to a specific node until it is inactive for a length of time. If the cluster is only used for one application, you can probably tweak that timeout number and use a ram filesystem for session files. Or go to one of the other alternative session stores. Good luck! -Matthew B. removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid :: 607 227 0871 Resume and Portfolio @ [http://madhatted.com](http://madhatted.com) ---
**Author:** ![M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@M\_Daggett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M_Daggett)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 8:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/acts-as-stateless/74355/4 "2005-12-22T20:17:36Z")
Thanks Matthew and Marcel, This is very interesting. I will look into this further, this info is a great help. My ideal solution will be one where I can have n rails apps running concurrently working as a cluster so that they all pull the session data from a central DB. This will allow machines to go up and down without worrying about users losing their session (though it does make the db the single point of failure --which it often is). On 12/22/05, Matthew B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > * * * > > Rails mailing list > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) –