The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.
Where a configuration setting may be set.
The session management system supports a number of configuration options which you can place in your php.ini file. We will give a short overview.
session.save_handler
string
session.save_handler
defines the name of the
handler which is used for storing and retrieving data
associated with a session. Defaults to
files
. Note that individual extensions may register
their own save_handler
s; registered handlers can be
obtained on a per-installation basis by referring to
phpinfo() . See also
session_set_save_handler() .
session.save_path
string
session.save_path
defines the argument which
is passed to the save handler. If you choose the default files
handler, this is the path where the files are created. See also
session_save_path() .
There is an optional N
argument to this directive that determines
the number of directory levels your session files will be spread
around in. For example, setting to '5;/tmp'
may end up creating a session file and location like
/tmp/4/b/1/e/3/sess_4b1e384ad74619bd212e236e52a5a174If
. In order to use N
you must create all of these
directories before use. A small shell script exists in
ext/session to do this, it's called
mod_files.sh, with a Windows version called
mod_files.bat. Also note that if N
is
used and greater than 0 then automatic garbage collection will
not be performed, see a copy of php.ini for further
information. Also, if you use N
, be sure to surround
session.save_path
in
"quotes" because the separator (;
) is
also used for comments in php.ini.
The file storage module creates files using mode 600 by default.
This default can be changed with the optional MODE
argument:
N;MODE;/path
where MODE
is the octal
representation of the mode.
Setting MODE
does not affect the process umask.
If this is set to a world-readable directory, such as /tmp (the default), other users on the server may be able to hijack sessions by getting the list of files in that directory.
When using the optional directory level argument N
,
as described above, note that using a value higher than 1 or 2 is
inappropriate for most sites due to the large number of directories
required: for example, a value of 3 implies that (2 ** session.sid_bits_per_character) ** 3
directories exist on the filesystem, which can result in a lot of wasted
space and inodes.
Only use N
greater than 2 if you are absolutely
certain that your site is large enough to require it.
session.name
string
session.name
specifies the name of the
session which is used as cookie name. It should only contain
alphanumeric characters. Defaults to PHPSESSID
.
See also session_name() .
session.auto_start
bool
session.auto_start
specifies whether the
session module starts a session automatically on request
startup. Defaults to 0
(disabled).
session.serialize_handler
string
session.serialize_handler
defines the name of
the handler which is used to serialize/deserialize data. PHP
serialize format (name php_serialize
), PHP
internal formats (name php
and
php_binary
) and WDDX are supported (name
wddx
). WDDX is only available, if PHP is
compiled with WDDX
support. php_serialize
uses plain
serialize/unserialize function internally and does not have
limitations that php
and php_binary
have. Older serialize handlers
cannot store numeric index nor string index contains special
characters (|
and !
) in
$_SESSION. Use php_serialize
to avoid numeric
index or special character errors at script shutdown. Defaults
to php
.
session.gc_probability
int
session.gc_probability
in conjunction with
session.gc_divisor
is used to manage probability
that the gc (garbage collection) routine is started.
Defaults to 1
. Must be greater than or equal to 0
. See session.gc_divisor for details.
session.gc_divisor
int
session.gc_divisor
coupled with
session.gc_probability
defines the probability
that the gc (garbage collection) process is started on every session
initialization.
The probability is calculated by using gc_probability/gc_divisor,
e.g. 1/100 means there is a 1% chance that the GC process starts
on each request.
session.gc_divisor
defaults to 100
.
Must be greater than 0
.
session.gc_maxlifetime
int
session.gc_maxlifetime
specifies the number
of seconds after which data will be seen as 'garbage' and
potentially cleaned up. Garbage collection may occur during session start
(depending on session.gc_probability and
session.gc_divisor).
Defaults to 1440
(24 minutes).
Note: If different scripts have different values of
session.gc_maxlifetime
but share the same place for storing the session data then the script with the minimum value will be cleaning the data. In this case, use this directive together with session.save_path.
session.referer_check
string
session.referer_check
contains the
substring you want to check each HTTP Referer for. If the
Referer was sent by the client and the substring was not
found, the embedded session id will be marked as invalid.
Defaults to the empty string.
session.entropy_file
string
session.entropy_file
gives a path to an
external resource (file) which will be used as an additional
entropy source in the session id creation process. Examples are
/dev/random
or /dev/urandom
which are available on many Unix systems.
This feature is supported on Windows. Setting
session.entropy_length
to a non zero value
will make PHP use the Windows Random API as entropy source.
Note: Removed in PHP 7.1.0.
session.entropy_file
defaults to/dev/urandom
or/dev/arandom
if it is available.
session.entropy_length
int
session.entropy_length
specifies the number
of bytes which will be read from the file specified
above. Defaults to 32
.
Removed in PHP 7.1.0.
session.use_strict_mode
bool
session.use_strict_mode
specifies whether the
module will use strict session id mode. If this mode is enabled,
the module does not accept uninitialized session IDs. If an uninitialized
session ID is sent from the browser, a new session ID is sent to the browser.
Applications are protected from session fixation via session adoption
with strict mode.
Defaults to 0
(disabled).
Note: Enabling
session.use_strict_mode
is mandatory for general session security. All sites are advised to enable this. See session_create_id() example code for more details.
If a custom session handler registered via session_set_save_handler()
does not implement SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface::validateId() ,
nor supplies the validate_sid
callback, respectively,
strict session ID mode is effectively disabled, regardless of the value of this directive.
Particularly note that SessionHandler does not
implement SessionHandler::validateId().
session.use_cookies
specifies whether the
module will use cookies to store the session id on the client
side. Defaults to 1
(enabled).
session.use_only_cookies
specifies whether
the module will only use
cookies to store the session id on the client side.
Enabling this setting prevents attacks that involve passing session
IDs in URLs.
Defaults to 1
(enabled).
session.cookie_lifetime
specifies the lifetime of
the cookie in seconds which is sent to the browser. The value 0
means "until the browser is closed." Defaults to
0
. See also
session_get_cookie_params() and
session_set_cookie_params() .
Note: The expiration timestamp is set relative to the server time, which is not necessarily the same as the time in the client's browser.
session.cookie_path
specifies path to set
in the session cookie. Defaults to /
. See also
session_get_cookie_params() and
session_set_cookie_params() .
session.cookie_domain
specifies the domain to
set in the session cookie. Default is none at all meaning the host name of
the server which generated the cookie according to cookies specification.
See also session_get_cookie_params() and
session_set_cookie_params() .
session.cookie_secure
specifies whether
cookies should only be sent over secure connections. With this option set
to on
, sessions only work with HTTPS connections.
If it is off
, then sessions work with both HTTP and
HTTPS connections. Defaults to off
.
See also
session_get_cookie_params() and
session_set_cookie_params() .
Lax
and Strict
mean that the cookie
will not be sent cross-domain for POST requests; Lax
will send the cookie for cross-domain GET requests, while Strict
will not.
session.cache_limiter
string
session.cache_limiter
specifies the cache
control method used for session pages.
It may be one of the following values:
nocache
, private
,
private_no_expire
, or public
.
Defaults to nocache
. See also the
session_cache_limiter() documentation for
information about what these values mean.
session.cache_expire
int
session.cache_expire
specifies time-to-live
for cached session pages in minutes, this has no effect for
nocache limiter. Defaults to 180
. See also
session_cache_expire() .
session.use_trans_sid
bool
session.use_trans_sid
whether transparent
sid support is enabled or not. Defaults to
0
(disabled).
Note: URL based session management has additional security risks compared to cookie based session management. Users may send a URL that contains an active session ID to their friends by email or users may save a URL that contains a session ID to their bookmarks and access your site with the same session ID always, for example. Since PHP 7.1.0, full URL path, e.g. https://php.net/, is handled by trans sid feature. Previous PHP handled relative URL path only. Rewrite target hosts are defined by session.trans_sid_hosts.
session.trans_sid_tags
specifies which HTML tags
are rewritten to include session id when transparent sid support
is enabled. Defaults to
a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=
form
is special tag. <input hidden="session_id" name="session_name">
is added as form variable.
Note: Before PHP 7.1.0, url_rewriter.tags was used for this purpose. Since PHP 7.1.0,
fieldset
is no longer considered as special tag.
session.trans_sid_hosts
string
session.trans_sid_hosts
specifies which hosts
are rewritten to include session id when transparent sid support
is enabled. Defaults to $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']
Multiple hosts can be specified by ",", no space is allowed
between hosts. e.g. php.net,wiki.php.net,bugs.php.net
session.sid_length
int
session.sid_length
allows you to specify the
length of session ID string. Session ID length can be between 22
to 256.
The default is 32. If you need compatibility you may specify 32,
40, etc. Longer session ID is harder to guess. At least 32 chars
are recommended.
Compatibility Note: Use 32 instead of
session.hash_function
=0 (MD5) and
session.hash_bits_per_character
=4,
session.hash_function
=1 (SHA1) and
session.hash_bits_per_character
=6. Use 26 instead of
session.hash_function
=0 (MD5) and
session.hash_bits_per_character
=5. Use 22 instead of
session.hash_function
=0 (MD5) and
session.hash_bits_per_character
=6. You must
configure INI values to have at least 128 bits in session ID. Do
not forget to set an appropriate value for
session.sid_bits_per_character
, otherwise you
will have weaker session ID.
Note: This setting is introduced in PHP 7.1.0.
session.sid_bits_per_character
int
session.sid_bits_per_character
allows you to specify the
number of bits in encoded session ID character. The possible values are
'4' (0-9, a-f), '5' (0-9, a-v), and '6' (0-9, a-z, A-Z, "-", ",").
The default is 4. The more bits results in stronger session ID. 5 is
recommended value for most environments.
Note: This setting is introduced in PHP 7.1.0.
session.hash_function
mixed
session.hash_function
allows you to specify the hash
algorithm used to generate the session IDs. '0' means MD5 (128 bits) and
'1' means SHA-1 (160 bits).
It is also possible to specify any of the algorithms
provided by the hash extension (if it is
available), like sha512
or
whirlpool
. A complete list of supported algorithms can
be obtained with the hash_algos() function.
Note: Removed in PHP 7.1.0.
session.hash_bits_per_character
int
session.hash_bits_per_character
allows you to define
how many bits are stored in each character when converting the binary
hash data to something readable. The possible values are '4' (0-9, a-f),
'5' (0-9, a-v), and '6' (0-9, a-z, A-Z, "-", ",").
Note: Removed in PHP 7.1.0.
session.upload_progress.enabled
bool
session.upload_progress.cleanup
bool
Note: It is highly recommended to keep this feature enabled.
session.upload_progress.prefix
string
$_POST[ini_get("session.upload_progress.name")]
to
provide a unique index.
Defaults to "upload_progress_".
session.upload_progress.name
string
$_POST[ini_get("session.upload_progress.name")]
is not passed or available, upload progressing will not be recorded.
Defaults to "PHP_SESSION_UPLOAD_PROGRESS".
session.upload_progress.freq
mixed
session.upload_progress.min_freq
int
session.lazy_write
bool
session.lazy_write
, when set to 1, means that session
data is only rewritten if it changes. Defaults to 1, enabled.
Upload progress will not be registered unless session.upload_progress.enabled is enabled, and the $_POST[ini_get("session.upload_progress.name")] variable is set. See Session Upload Progress for more details on this functionality.
Can't find mod_files.sh? Here it is:
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
#!/usr/bin/env bash
if [[ "2ドル" = "" ]] || [[ "3ドル" = "" ]]; then
echo "Usage: 0ドル BASE_DIRECTORY DEPTH BITS_PER_CHAR"
echo "BASE_DIRECTORY will be created if it doesn't exist"
echo "DEPTH must be an integer number >0"
echo "BITS_PER_CHAR(session.sid_bits_per_character) should be one of 4, 5, or 6."
# http://php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.sid-bits-per-character
exit 1
fi
if [[ "2ドル" = "0" ]] && [[ ! "4ドル" = "recurse" ]]; then
echo "Can't create a directory tree with depth of 0, exiting."
fi
if [[ "2ドル" = "0" ]]; then
exit 0
fi
directory="1ドル"
depth="2ドル"
bitsperchar="3ドル"
hash_chars="0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f"
if [[ "$bitsperchar" -ge "5" ]]; then
hash_chars="$hash_chars g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v"
fi
if [[ "$bitsperchar" -ge "6" ]]; then
hash_chars="$hash_chars w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z - ,"
fi
while [[ -d $directory ]] && [[ $( ls $directory ) ]]; do
echo "Directory $directory is not empty! What would you like to do?"
options="\"Delete directory contents\" \"Choose another directory\" \"Quit\""
eval set $options
select opt in "$@"; do
if [[ $opt = "Delete directory contents" ]]; then
echo "Deleting $directory contents... "
rm -rf $directory/*
elif [[ $opt = "Choose another directory" ]]; then
echo "Which directory would you like to choose?"
read directory
elif [[ $opt = "Quit" ]]; then
exit 0
fi
break;
done
done
if [[ ! -d $directory ]]; then
mkdir -p $directory
fi
echo "Creating session path in $directory with a depth of $depth for session.sid_bits_per_character = $bitsperchar"
for i in $hash_chars; do
newpath="$directory/$i"
mkdir $newpath || exit 1
bash 0ドル $newpath `expr $depth - 1` $bitsperchar recurse
done
On debian (based) systems, changing session.gc_maxlifetime at runtime has no real effect. Debian disables PHP's own garbage collector by setting session.gc_probability=0. Instead it has a cronjob running every 30 minutes (see /etc/cron.d/php5) that cleans up old sessions. This cronjob basically looks into your php.ini and uses the value of session.gc_maxlifetime there to decide which sessions to clean (see /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime).
You can adjust the global value in your php.ini (usually /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini). Or you can change the session.save_path so debian's cronjob will not clean up your sessions anymore. Then you need to either do your own garbage collection with your own cronjob or enable PHP's garbage collection (php then needs sufficient privileges on the save_path).
Why does Debian not use PHP's garbarage collection?
For security reasons, they store session data in a place (/var/lib/php5) with very stringent permissions. With the sticky bit set, only root is allowed to rename or delete files there, so PHP itself cannot clean up old session data. See https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=267720 .
the pwd should be urlencode when it contanis special chars.
eg:
save_handler:redis
save_path: tcp://127.0.0.1:6739?auth=urlencode('xxxxx')
To prevent mitm-attacks you want to make sure the session cookie is only transmitted over a secure channel prefix it with the magic string "__Secure-". [1]
Like :
<?php
session_start( [ 'name' => '__Secure-Session-ID' ] );
?>
The cookie will not be available on non-secure channel.
(Putting this note it here probably goes unnoticed because of all the noise)
[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Set-Cookie#attributes
Please be careful with the 'sid_length' when setting 'sid_bits_per_character' to six.
Setting sid_bits_per_character to 6 includes the character "," to the list of possible characters. A comma will be escaped and transmitted as "%2C" (tested on Chromium Version 119.0.6045.199) adding two extra characters for each comma to the SESSION_ID.
We found a session.save_path depth of 3 led to excessive wastage of inodes and in fact disk space in storing the directory tree. dir_indexes option on ext2/3/4 makes larger directories more feasible anyway, so we decided to move to a depth of 2 instead.
It took a little puzzling to figure out how to move the existing PHP sessions up one directory tree, but we ended up running this in the root sessions directory:
#!/bin/sh
for a in ./* ; do
cd ./$a
pwd
for b in ./* ; do
cd ./$b
pwd
# Move existing sessions out
find ./* -xdev -type f -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t .
# Remove subdirectories
find ./* -xdev -type d -print0 | xargs -0 rmdir
cd ..
done
cd ..
done
This script may not be the best way to do it, but it got the job done fast. You can modify it for different depths by adding or removing "for" loops.
The documentation gives a depth of 5 as an example, but five is right out. If you're going beyond 2, you're at the scale where you may want to to look at a large memcached or redis instance instead.
I found out that if you need to set custom session settings, you only need to do it once when session starts. Then session maintains its settings, even if you use ini_set and change them, original session still will use it's original setting until it expires.
Just thought it might be useful to someone.
When setting the session.cookie_lifetime directive in a .htaccess use string format like;
php_value session.cookie_lifetime "123456"
and not
php_value session.cookie_lifetime 123456
Using a integer as stated above dit not work in my case (Apache/2.2.11 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.2.6-3ubuntu4.5 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8g)
Being unable to find an actual copy of mod_files.sh, and seeing lots of complaints/bug fix requests for it, here's one that works. It gets all its parameters from PHP.INI, so you don't have the opportunity to mess up:
#!/bin/bash
#
# Creates directories for PHP session storage.
# Replaces the one that "comes with" PHP, which (a) doesn't always come with it
# and (b) doesn't work so great.
#
# This version takes no parameters, and uses the values in PHP.INI (if it
# can find it).
#
# Works in OS-X and CentOS (and probably all other) Linux.
#
# Feb '13 by Jeff Levene.
[[ $# -gt 0 ]] && echo "0ドル requires NO command-line parameters.
It gets does whatever is called for in the PHP.INI file (if it can find it).
" && exit 1
# Find the PHP.INI file, if possible:
phpIni=/usr/local/lib/php.ini # Default PHP.INI location
[[ ! -f "$phpIni" ]] && phpIni=/etc/php.ini # Secondary location
[[ ! -f "$phpIni" ]] && phpIni= # Found it?
# Outputs the given (as 1ドル) parameter from the PHP.INI file:
# The "empty" brackets have a SPACE and a TAB in them.
#
PhpConfigParam() {
[[ ! "$phpIni" ]] && return
# Get the line from the INI file:
varLine=`grep "^[ ]*1ドル[ ]*=" "$phpIni"`
# Extract the value:
value=`expr "$varLine" : ".*1ドル[ ]*=[ ]*['\"]*\([^'\"]*\)"`
echo "$value"
}
if [[ "$phpIni" ]]
then
savePath=`PhpConfigParam session.save_path`
# If there's a number and semicolon at the front, remove them:
dirDepth=`expr "$savePath" : '\([0-9]*\)'`
[[ "$dirDepth" ]] && savePath=`expr "$savePath" : '[0-9]*;\(.*\)'` || dirDepth=0
bits=`PhpConfigParam session.hash_bits_per_character`
case "x$bits" in
x) echo "hash_bits_per_character not defined. Not running." ; exit 2 ;;
x4) alphabet='0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f' ;;
x5) alphabet='0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v' ;;
x6) alphabet='0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v'
alphabet="$alphabet w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W"
alphabet="$alphabet X Y Z - ,"
;;
*) echo "unrecognized hash_bits_per_character. Not running." ; exit 2 ;;
esac
else
echo "Cannot find the PHP.INI file. Not running. Sorry."
exit 2
fi
# The depth of directories to create is 1ドル. 0 means just create the named
# directory. Directory to start with is 2ドル.
#
# Used recursively, so variables must be "local".
doDir() {
local dir="2ドル"
if [[ -d "$dir" ]]
then
echo "Directory '$dir' already exists. No problem."
elif [[ -f "$dir" ]]
then
echo "FILE '$dir' exists. Aborting." ; exit 2
else
if mkdir "$dir"
then
echo "Directory '$dir' created."
else
echo "Cannot create directory '$dir'. Aborting." ; exit 2
fi
fi
chmod a+rwx "$dir"
if [[ 1ドル -gt 0 ]]
then
local depth=$(( 1ドル - 1 ))
for letter in $alphabet
do doDir $depth "$dir/$letter"
done
fi
}
echo "Running with savePath='$savePath', dirDepth=$dirDepth, and bitsPerCharacter=$bits."
sleep 3
doDir $dirDepth "$savePath"
exit 0
session.cache_limiter may be empty string to disable cache headers entirely.
Quote:
> Setting the cache limiter to '' will turn off automatic sending of cache headers entirely.
http://php.net/manual/en/function.session-cache-limiter.php
max value for "session.gc_maxlifetime" is 65535. values bigger than this may cause php session stops working.
Use SessionHandlerInterface interface Custom redis session, found the following:
Use ini_set ('session.save_path', "tcp: //127.0.0.1: 6379? Auth = password"); will be reported:
PHP Fatal error: session_start (): Failed to initialize storage module: user (path: tcp: //127.0.0.1: 6379? Auth = password);
Using session_save_path ("tcp: //127.0.0.1: 6379? Auth = password") will not
Transient sessions do not appear to be working in 5.3.3
E.g.
<?php
ini_set("session.use_cookies", 0);
ini_set("session.use_trans_sid", 1);
session_start();
if (isset($_SESSION["foo"])) {
echo "Foo: " . $_SESSION["foo"];
} else {
$_SESSION["foo"] = "Bar";
echo "<a href=?" . session_name() . "=" . session_id() . ">Begin test</a>";
}
?>
This works in 5.2.5, but not 5.3.3
You should take more care configuring session.gc_maxlifetime when virtual hosts share the same session-saving directory. One host's session data may be gc'ed when another host runs php.
After having many problems with garbage collection not clearing my sessions I have resolved it through the following.
First I found this in the php.ini (not something i noticed as i use phpinfo(); to see my hosting ini).
; NOTE: If you are using the subdirectory option for storing session files
; (see session.save_path above), then garbage collection does *not*
; happen automatically. You will need to do your own garbage
; collection through a shell script, cron entry, or some other method. ; For example, the following script would is the equivalent of
; setting session.gc_maxlifetime to 1440 (1440 seconds = 24 minutes):
; cd /path/to/sessions; find -cmin +24 | xargs rm
With this is mind there are options.
1. dont use a custom save_path.
** This means if your isp hasnt defaulted your session temp to something safer than install default or you are using a shared directory for session data then you would be wise to use named sessions to keep your session from being viewable in other people's scripts. Creating a unique_id name for this is the common method. **
2. use your custom folder but write a garbage collection script.
3. use a custom handler and a database
This is how I set my session.save_path
session.save_path = "1;/home/askapache/tmp/s"
So to create the folder structure you can use this compatible shell script, if you want to create with 777 permissions change the umask to 0000;
sh -o braceexpand -c "umask 0077;mkdir -p s/{0..9}/{a..z} s/{a..z}/{0..9}"
Then you can create a cronjob to clean the session folder by adding this to your crontab which deletes any session files older than an hour:
@daily find /home/askapache/tmp/s -type f -mmin +60 -exec rm -f {} \; &>/dev/null
That will create sessions in folder like:
/home/askapache/tmp/s/b/sess_b1aba5q6io4lv01bpc6t52h0ift227j6
I don't think any non-mega site will need to go more than 1 levels deep. Otherwise you create so many directories that it slows the performance gained by this.
Recently, I needed to change the session save_path in my program under Windows. With an ini_set('session.save_path', '../data/sessions'); (and session.gc_divisor = 1 for test), I always obtain 'Error #8 session_start(): ps_files_cleanup_dir: opendir(../data/sessions) failed: Result too large'.
I corrected this by changing with ini_set('session.save_path', realpath('../data/sessions'));
session.use_strict_mode does very little to strengthen your security: only one very specific variant of attack is migitated by this (where the attacker hands an "empty" sid to the victim to adapt his own browser to that session later) - versus for example the case where he pre-opens a session, handing the sid of that one to the victim, so the victim gets adapted to the pre-opened session. In the latter case this flag does nothing to help. In every other scenario with other vulnerabilities where the session id gets leaked, the flag helps nigher.
But this flag renders the php function session_id() useless in its parameterized variant, thus preventing any php functionality that builds upon this function.
apparently the default value for session.use_only_cookies has changed in 5.3.3 from 0 to 1. If you haven't set this in your php.ini or your code to 0 transparent sessions won't work.
You should set `session.name` to use either prefix `__Host-` or `__Secure-`. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Set-Cookie#attributes
In php.ini, session.save_handler defines the name of the handler which is used for storing and retrieving data associated with a session. [Defaults to files.]
By default session.save_handler has support for below
session.save_handler = files
session.save_handler = sqlite
session.save_handler = redis
session.save_handler = memcached
These locks the session by default for any HTTP request using session.
Locking means, a user can't access session related pages until current request is completed.
So, if you are thinking that switching to these will increase performance; the answer is NO! because of locking behaviour.
To overcome/customise the session locking behaviour use as below.
session.save_handler = user
This is for all (including list above) modes of session storage.
For "user" type save_handler, we can ignore locks for better performance (as explained in function session_set_save_handler). But for this we need to take care to use sessions only for authenticity and not for passing data from one script to other.
For passing data accross scripts use GET method to achieve the goal.