# Excessive sessions **URL:** \ **Category:** Deployment\ **Created:** [April 28, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/excessive-sessions/136084 "2008-04-28T20:23:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/S-gw)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/excessive-sessions/136084/1 "2008-04-28T20:23:26Z")
One of the negative side effects of using the classic monit / mongrel\_cluster stack with a URL poll by monit is that Rails generates a session for every connection. This session is pretty much useless, and in my case is detrimental to data mining of session activity. At this point I am likely to look into the new mod\_rails, but I am wondering if there’s any possible way to have external monitors (be it monit, load balancers, etc) ping a Rails page to verify service, and yet _not_ create a session? Due to number of apps & Rails instances, I end up with 10’s of thousands of dummy sessions per day. I can provide config setup details, if that’s necessary to determine options, but essentially I have monit call upon a /public/monit\_check.txt file that has no content. this is apparently enough to still trigger a session via application.rb ? Rails 1.2.6, OS X Server 10.5. Thanks. – gw ---
**Author:** ![S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/S-gw)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2008, 12:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/excessive-sessions/136084/2 "2008-04-29T00:22:17Z")
Hi Greg My approach with Monit and sessions was to create a specific controller & action to poll, and turn sessions off for it. [http://pastie.textmate.org/188359](http://pastie.textmate.org/188359) It does feel like overkill, mind you, and I’m a little surprised that calling a static file (which is a more elegant solution) creates a session. – Pat e: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid || m: 0413 273 337 w: [http://freelancing-gods.com](http://freelancing-gods.com) || p: 03 9386 0928 discworld: [http://ausdwcon.org](http://ausdwcon.org) || skype: patallan ---
**Author:** ![S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/S-gw)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/excessive-sessions/136084/3 "2008-04-29T00:35:05Z")
Pat Allan wrote: > My approach with Monit and sessions was to create a specific > controller & action to poll, and turn sessions off for it. > [http://pastie.textmate.org/188359](http://pastie.textmate.org/188359) > It does feel like overkill, mind you, and I’m a little surprised that > calling a static file (which is a more elegant solution) creates a > session. I figured something like that but wasn’t sure of the details to pare it down to the bare essentials. Your code will help. Thanks, I’ll see if that cures it. – gw ---
**Author:** ![S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/S-gw)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2008, 8:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/excessive-sessions/136084/4 "2008-05-02T20:07:21Z")
Greg W. wrote: > One of the negative side effects of using the classic monit / > mongrel\_cluster stack with a URL poll by monit is that Rails generates a > session for every connection. This session is pretty much useless, and > in my case is detrimental to data mining of session activity. Take a look at [http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/92-feature-more-efficient-session-handling](http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/92-feature-more-efficient-session-handling) and [Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.](http://code.google.com/p/rails-fast-sessions/). ---
**Author:** ![S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@S-gw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/S-gw)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 12:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/excessive-sessions/136084/5 "2008-04-30T12:46:58Z")
Greg, Pat, Most people just use a cron job to clean up old sessions, we usually set it up to run every 15 minutes, how long will you let your sessions live is up to your business needs. Take a look at: [http://railsexpress.de/svn/plugins/sql\_session\_store/trunk/](http://railsexpress.de/svn/plugins/sql_session_store/trunk/) And remember that Rails 2 default session store is cookie. I would recommend changing your front end (Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx) configuration to serve directly the stuff under public/ without passing the request to the backend rails processes (mongrels, thins, etc). – Aníbal Rojas > **[Home - Has Many Developers](https://hasmanydevelopers.com/)** > > We are the best choice for your building design and development > **[RUBYCORNER.COM](https://www.rubycorner.com/)** > > RUBYCORNER.COM - Contact us for any business inquiries [http://anibal.rojas.com](http://anibal.rojas.com) On Apr 29, 5:35 pm, Greg W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)