Websocket chat message does not prolong HttpSession

Question

I have Java Spring Application, that has Chat endpoint served though WebSocket. User logs in using API calls and session has timeout 10 mins.

In order to start Chat I have to connect to WebSocket endpoint. It does connect, no problem, but the thing is that: each chat message sent from client does not prolong logged in HttpSession, so after 10 mins it times out.

How can I make chat message via WebSocket connecting to prolong HttpSession? Other words saying: how can I reset HttpSession timeout timer to 10 mins on each message sent via WebSocket?

Using reflection method I get HttpSession from WebSocket session and then I call setMaxInactiveInterval() method to reset session timeout timer, but it does not work, session still times out after 10 mins, even if I send many messages in between.

@OnMessage
public void onMessage(Session session, String message) {
 HttpSession httpSession = getHttpSession(session);
 processMessage(message);
 int initialTimeout = httpSession.getMaxInactiveInterval(); // returns 600 (10 mins) 
 httpSession.setMaxInactiveInterval(initialTimeout);
}

I need to find the way Spring extends the session on each API call and probably do it same way. Does anyone knows how Spring does it?

• Uddhav P. Gautam: Would you please post your code? How are you wanting to maintain your session?
• Renat Gatin: just updated my original post
• Renat Gatin: Ok I just understood, I am doing it wrong. The httpSession.setMaxInactiveInterval(initialTimeout) methods just sets max session expiration value, but does not resets the session countdown timer. I need to find different solution.

Answer 1

As you are not using HTTP when sending data through a WebSocket connection, the HTTP session will eventually timeout and this will also make your WebSocket connections close (as described in the JSR-356).

An easy solution to keep the HTTP session alive when using Spring WebSockets would be using Spring Session along.

• Renat Gatin: Yeah Spring Session will work, but I have a big project that uses HttpSession, too late to refactor it. Is there a way to use only HttpSession ?
• Sergi Almar: You can still use the HttpSession when using Spring Session, a filter replaces the HttpSession with a custom implementation backed by Spring Session