# One Session, Many Apps **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 18, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739 "2007-07-18T14:46:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/1 "2007-07-18T14:46:49Z")
I’m looking for a way to share one ActiveRecordStore session between multiple apps. I’m sure its possible, but not sure how. Ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 2:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/2 "2007-07-18T14:58:09Z")
I guess this would hinge on setting a domain level cookie, as its the cookie which hooks in the session id. You could then connect to a shared database for your session store in databases.yml you’d have to define sessions\_development: host: blah name: blah sessions\_test: blah … class ActiveRecordStore::Session establish\_connection(“sessions#{RAILS\_ENV}”.intern) end and probably class ActiveRecordStore::SqlBypass.connection = ActiveRecordStore::Session.connection haven’t tried it, but it makes sense, I think. Jarod R. wrote: > I’m looking for a way to share one ActiveRecordStore session between > multiple apps. I’m sure its possible, but not sure how. Ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/3 "2007-07-18T15:27:54Z")
On Jul 18, 2007, at 08:45 , Jarod R. wrote: > I’m looking for a way to share one ActiveRecordStore session between > multiple apps. I’m sure its possible, but not sure how. Ideas? Memcache. 🙂 If you use Memcache to store your sessions, then you can easily access data across your applications. You just need to make sure you don’t have namespace collisions or your data will get mixed up between the sites. I know, not a very traditional solution to this problem, but for sites running on more than one server Memcache should be used anyway IMHO so you get the added benefit for free. – Mitch ---
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/4 "2007-07-18T14:59:25Z")
and of course, you get into a whole annoying world if your running your tests off multiple dbs. (you may just want to keep the same database for dev and test) ---
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/5 "2007-07-18T16:02:10Z")
On Jul 18, 2007, at 6:46 AM, Jarod R. wrote: > Thanks Mitch. Memcache would probably work however at the moment it > isn’t in the cards. The apps use the same database to store sessions. > The question is how to make the session persist across apps. Short answer, you can’t 😕 Longer answer: It’s easy enough to share the database sessions table but the cookies that store the session\_id are tied to the domain they we’re served from. So the only way to share the sessons out of the box is to use subdomains and set the session cookie correctly. set the sessions cookie domain to .example.com the . is important Then you can use the same sessions cookies across subdomains like [foo.example.com](http://foo.example.com) [bar.example.com](http://bar.example.com) Cheers- – Ezra Z. – Founder & Ruby Hacker – removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid – Engine Y., Serious Rails Hosting – (866) 518-YARD (9273) ---
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/6 "2007-07-18T16:06:11Z")
Ezra Z. wrote: > the database sessions table but the cookies that store the session\_id > Cheers- Ezra, thats more along the lines of what I thought it would be. And it works well enough for my needs. Out of curiosity, though, could one persist the actual object using DRB? – Jarod ---
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 3:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/7 "2007-07-18T15:52:09Z")
Mitch P. wrote: > access data across your applications. You just need to make sure you Thanks Mitch. Memcache would probably work however at the moment it isn’t in the cards. The apps use the same database to store sessions. The question is how to make the session persist across apps. ---
**Author:** ![Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jarod\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jarod_R)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/one-session-many-apps/109739/8 "2007-07-19T00:59:52Z")
The real answer to your question depends on what exactly you are trying to accomplish. Sharing sessions might be the best, or even a good solution. For example if your apps all require a login, just create a separate table to hold the information you want to share and key it off the username. Memcache would be perfect for this, not sure why you are ruling it out. If your apps all require a login, and the shared data absolutely has to be saved on every request, then you can share sessions by creating a username column in the sessions table, and modify activerecord so when someone logs in it checks to see if a session exists for the user, and if so resets the cookie session id to that user. That way lies madness, but it can work in the right circumstances. Chris