Importance & Types of Session Tracking

 HTTP is a stateless protocol. That means it doesn’t contain any information regarding the client, where it’s coming from. So it’s hard for Web Server to know whether it’s a request from a new user or not. This behavior can cause many problems.

For example, suppose a user has logged into a site. Now he wants to go to a particular section which is on another page then he would be required to login again as the requested page would be a login-protected page and the Web Server doesn't know if the user requesting this page is the one who is already logged in or if it's a new user. Therefore, to overcome this problem, session tracking is introduced. So session tracking is the process to maintain the important information of a client as a session.

Types: there are 3 ways to track a session.

1.      using cookies,

2.      using URL rewriting, and

3.      using hidden form fields.

Using Cookies:

·        Cookies are stored in client-side, generally in web browser’s cache.

·        Cookie object contain the important information regarding a particular session.

·        It contains a unique Session ID, which helps the Web Server to track and fetch the information regarding a client’s session.

·        A time-period of a cookie can be set.

·        A client can enable/disable the cookie option from the browser.

Using URL Rewriting:

·        In this process, some data containing the user details is appended on the end of the URL and send to the Web Server.

·        This data is used to identify the session by the Server and it sorted it as a particular session.

·        In this case, session info is saved in the server side, so its work even a client disabled cookies.

Using Hidden Form Fields:

·        This is another method to track a session, where the data travels throughhidden form fields.

·        In HTML forms, there is an entry (<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN"  NAME="session" VALUE="...">) in which, the specified name and value are included in the GET or POST data.

·        Here, if you choose GET, the info can be seen, so it’s a bit problem in case of security.

·        This way is only works, if all the pages are dynamic in nature.