Sessions

Symfony provides a session object and several utilities that you can use to store information about the user between requests.

Configuration

Sessions are provided by the HttpFoundation component, which is included in all Symfony applications, no matter how you installed it. Before using the sessions, check their default configuration:

.. configuration-block::

    .. code-block:: yaml

        # config/packages/framework.yaml
        framework:
            session:
                # enables the support of sessions in the app
                enabled: true
                # ID of the service used for session storage.
                # NULL =  means that PHP's default session mechanism is used
                handler_id: null
                # improves the security of the cookies used for sessions
                cookie_secure: 'auto'
                cookie_samesite: 'lax'

    .. code-block:: xml

        <!-- config/packages/framework.xml -->
        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
        <container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
            xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
            xmlns:framework="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
            xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
                https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony https://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">

            <framework:config>
                <!--
                    enabled: enables the support of sessions in the app
                    handler-id: ID of the service used for session storage
                                NULL means that PHP's default session mechanism is used
                    cookie-secure and cookie-samesite: improves the security of the cookies used for sessions
                -->
                <framework:session enabled="true"
                                   handler-id="null"
                                   cookie-secure="auto"
                                   cookie-samesite="lax"/>
            </framework:config>
        </container>

    .. code-block:: php

        // config/packages/framework.php
        $container->loadFromExtension('framework', [
            'session' => [
                // enables the support of sessions in the app
                'enabled' => true,
                // ID of the service used for session storage
                // NULL means that PHP's default session mechanism is used
                'handler_id' => null,
                // improves the security of the cookies used for sessions
                'cookie_secure' => 'auto',
                'cookie_samesite' => 'lax',
            ],
        ]);

Setting the handler_id config option to null means that Symfony will use the native PHP session mechanism. The session metadata files will be stored outside of the Symfony application, in a directory controlled by PHP. Although this usually simplify things, some session expiration related options may no work as expected if other applications that write to the same directory have short max lifetime settings.

If you prefer, you can use the session.handler.native_file service as handler_id to let Symfony manage the sessions itself. Another useful option is save_path, which defines the directory where Symfony will store the session metadata files:

.. configuration-block::

    .. code-block:: yaml

        # config/packages/framework.yaml
        framework:
            session:
                # ...
                handler_id: 'session.handler.native_file'
                save_path: '%kernel.project_dir%/var/sessions/%kernel.environment%'

    .. code-block:: xml

        <!-- config/packages/framework.xml -->
        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
        <container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
            xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
            xmlns:framework="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
            xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
                https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony https://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">

            <framework:config>
                <framework:session enabled="true"
                                   handler-id="session.handler.native_file"
                                   save-path="%kernel.project_dir%/var/sessions/%kernel.environment%"/>
            </framework:config>
        </container>

    .. code-block:: php

        // config/packages/framework.php
        $container->loadFromExtension('framework', [
            'session' => [
                // ...
                'handler_id' => 'session.handler.native_file',
                'save_path' => '%kernel.project_dir%/var/sessions/%kernel.environment%',
            ],
        ]);

Check out the Symfony config reference to learn more about the other available :ref:`Session configuration options <config-framework-session>`. Also, if you prefer to store session metadata in a database instead of the filesystem, check out this article: :doc:`/doctrine/pdo_session_storage`.

Basic Usage

Symfony provides a session service that is injected in your services and controllers if you type-hint an argument with :class:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Session\\SessionInterface`:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\SessionInterface;

class SomeService
{
    private $session;

    public function __construct(SessionInterface $session)
    {
        $this->session = $session;
    }

    public function someMethod()
    {
        // stores an attribute in the session for later reuse
        $session->set('attribute-name', 'attribute-value');

        // gets an attribute by name
        $foo = $session->get('foo');

        // uses a default value if the attribute doesn't exist
        $filters = $session->get('filters', []);

        // ...
    }
}

Stored attributes remain in the session for the remainder of that user's session.

Tip

Every SessionInterface implementation is supported. If you have your own implementation, type-hint this in the argument instead.

Avoid Starting Sessions for Anonymous Users

Sessions are automatically started whenever you read, write or even check for the existence of data in the session. This may hurt your application performance because all users will receive a session cookie. In order to prevent that, you must completely avoid accessing the session.

For example, if your templates include some code to display the :ref:`flash messages <flash-messages>`, sessions will start even if the user is not logged in and even if you haven't created any flash messages. To avoid this behavior, add a check before trying to access the flash messages:

{# this check prevents starting a session when there are no flash messages #}
{% if app.request.hasPreviousSession %}
    {% for message in app.flashes('notice') %}
        <div class="flash-notice">
            {{ message }}
        </div>
    {% endfor %}
{% endif %}

More about Sessions

.. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1

    /doctrine/pdo_session_storage
    session/locale_sticky_session
    session/php_bridge
    session/proxy_examples

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