Store user session data in the database instead of the filesystem on RailsEdit

Created , updated

Note

When this article was originally written storing the session in the database was the faster way of storing session data. It should be noted that once the number of sessions grows pruning the table can become quite expensive (see "Clearing out old Rails session records from a MySQL database" and the related ticket, ticket #1142, "Set-up automated pruning of sessions table").

Since then, alternative stores have become available, such as the cookie-based store.

Storing user session data in the database

For better performance, see:

http://weblog.textdrive.com/article/196/on-rails-sessions

In summary, uncomment this line in your config/environment.rb file:

config.action_controller.session_store = :active_record_store

Then to create the sessions table run:

rake db:sessions:create

To have the migration take effect you could do the following:

rake migrate

Or to do this for a specific environment:

rake RAILS_ENV=test migrate

Example

After performing several iterations of Behaviour-Driven Development as described in Behaviour-Driven Development with Rails I decided that I wanted to create a Session model to handle user sessions (login, logout). At the same time it made sense to start storing Rails’ user session data in the database as described in this article.

# create sessions migration
rake db:sessions:create

# create Session model and spec files
script/generate rspec_model Session --skip-migration

# create Session controller with appropriate actions
script/generate rspec_controller sessions create destroy

# perform the migrations on the development and test databases
rake db:migrate
env RAILS_ENV=test rake db:migrate

# make sure all the specs still pass
rake spec

# check changes into SVK
svk st | grep '?' | awk '{print $2}' | xargs svk add
svk ci -m "Sessions model and controller (initial creation)"

The --skip-migration switch is needed because without it script/generate rspec_model will create an additional, duplicate migration to create the sessions table in the database (already created on the previous step).

In fact, creating the Session model may not be necessary at all, unless you wish to add some custom behaviour. A basic controller similar to the following may be all that is needed:

class SessionsController < ApplicationController

  def create
    if current_user = User.authenticate(params[:login_name], params[:password])
      flash[:notice]  = 'Successfully logged in.'
      redirect_to home_path
    else
      flash[:error]   = 'Invalid login or password.'
      render :action => 'new'
    end
  end

  def destroy
    session.delete
    flash[:notice]  = 'You have logged out successfully.'
    redirect_to home_path
  end

end