Fundamentals Of Session Management Systems

Session management systems are a critical part of web software for both security and user experience. However, not all programming languages have session support, so developing one becomes essential.

What Is A Session Management System?

In the context of web applications, a session management system is a mechanism that allows users to preserve their state across interactions with different software resources over a specified time. Its implementation is crucial for software security and can help improve the user experience.

However, not all programming languages have a native session management system. Some languages, such as PHP, have native session management, while others—like Python or Ruby—require developers to either create one or install a third-party system.

But most languages that do not have native session support also do not have standalone third-party session management systems and instead rely on entire frameworks.

Installing a framework has several advantages in many aspects, but it also has several disadvantages. Among them are the security risks implied in dependencies, the excess of unused resources, the loss of control over the software core, and restricting software engineering to pre-established guidelines and parameters, which may not fit the actual software requirements. So, developing a bespoke or generic session management system seems to be the best option.

Why Is A Session Management System Important?

A session management system is crucial for both security and user experience. Among the various uses of a session management system are the following:

• Security: A session management system is critical for user authentication and authorisation, allowing not only user identity validation but also tracking their identity across multiple requests.
• Data Persistence: A session management system allows the application to store temporary data that needs to persist across multiple user requests.
• Tracking and Audit: A session management system makes it possible to maintain audit trails, track user interactions, and gather analytics data.
• User Experience and Personalisation: A session management system helps users interact without re-entering information repeatedly. It also allows for personalising their experience, as the system enables software to store and retrieve data for customisation.
• Scalability: In distributed architectures, session management systems help maintain user sessions across multiple servers, facilitating load balancing.

On the other hand, a standalone session management system that can be attached to the software core introduces particular advantages, such as:

• Dependency reduction
• Control increasing
• Performance adjustments
• Adaptation flexibility
• Security improvements

How Does A Session Management System Work?

A user session is the period during which a user interacts with the software, and it is managed by storing data on both the user side (the browser) and the server side.

The data is stored in files through different mechanisms and is used for different purposes, as previously mentioned.

All this work is achieved by a set of functions available in the session management system. Although each system may have its own functions, they share a common series of steps, described as follows:

• Session ID Generation (a high-entropy token): The session management system generates an ID that is used to identify the user across their interactions.
• Session Storage: The session management system stores the ID and other customised data.
• Session Validation (a recurrent step): For each user interaction, the session management system provides a mechanism to safely validate the user’s identity using the ID.
• Session Lifecycle Verification: This is used to handle session expiration time, referring to the user’s inactivity time.
• Session Destruction: A mechanism to end a session.
• Garbage Collection: A mechanism to verify and clean up orphaned session files.

When Is It Recommended to Develop a Session Management System?

Whenever a user’s state persistence is necessary through a more secure mechanism than storing data in cookies, and the programming language does not have native support for handling sessions, developing a generic or bespoke session management system should be considered.

While it is not easy to design and develop secure session management, it is worth doing carefully to prevent session attacks such as:

• Session Hijacking
• Session Fixation
• Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
• Brute Force Session ID Attacks
• Session Timeout Attacks

Where to Place a Session Management System?

While a session management system can be developed as a programming language extension, it is not the most efficient option. Therefore, the best alternative is to integrate the session management system into the software core.

The reasons behind this decision involve both programming language maintainability and software maintainability and scalability.

Since modifying the code of a critical dependency, such as the programming language with which the software has been developed, is a well-known bad practice, it should not be considered a viable option.

On the other hand, attaching the session management system to the software core has several advantages:

• It reduces software dependency since it is part of the software itself.
• It increases control over the session management system, allowing for customisation as needed.
• It facilitates performance adjustments as the software scales.
• It allows for code adaptations according to the software requirements.
• Finally, as it can be trail-tracked, it can also improve security by setting up customised session rules.

Who Designs and Develops a Session Management System?

Since a session management system is a critical part of both software security and the software core, a software architect should design the whole system, while a software engineer should implement the design.

What Next?

If you want to design and develop a session management system, you can opt for funding an ongoing open-source session management design project to share the production costs.

You can also choose to develop the system yourself or hire a software core architect and engineer.

If you need assistance, do not hesitate to scheduling a meeting.