Symfony
sponsored by SensioLabs
Menu
  • About
  • Documentation
  • Screencasts
  • Cloud
  • Certification
  • Community
  • Businesses
  • News
  • Download
  1. Home
  2. Documentation
  3. Session
  4. Limit Session Metadata Writes
  • Documentation
  • Book
  • Reference
  • Bundles
  • Cloud
Search by Algolia

Limit Session Metadata Writes

Edit this page

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 3.3, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 6.2 (the current stable version).

Limit Session Metadata Writes

The default behavior of PHP session is to persist the session regardless of whether the session data has changed or not. In Symfony, each time the session is accessed, metadata is recorded (session created/last used) which can be used to determine session age and idle time.

If for performance reasons you wish to limit the frequency at which the session persists, this feature can adjust the granularity of the metadata updates and persist the session less often while still maintaining relatively accurate metadata. If other session data is changed, the session will always persist.

You can tell Symfony not to update the metadata "session last updated" time until a certain amount of time has passed, by setting framework.session.metadata_update_threshold to a value in seconds greater than zero:

  • YAML
  • XML
  • PHP
1
2
3
framework:
    session:
        metadata_update_threshold: 120
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:framework="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">

    <framework:config>
        <framework:session metadata-update-threshold="120" />
    </framework:config>

</container>
1
2
3
4
5
$container->loadFromExtension('framework', array(
    'session' => array(
        'metadata_update_threshold' => 120,
    ),
));

Note

PHP default's behavior is to save the session whether it has been changed or not. When using framework.session.metadata_update_threshold Symfony will wrap the session handler (configured at framework.session.handler_id) into the WriteCheckSessionHandler. This will prevent any session write if the session was not modified.

Caution

Be aware that if the session is not written at every request, it may be garbage collected sooner than usual. This means that your users may be logged out sooner than expected.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
We stand with Ukraine.
Version:
Symfony Code Performance Profiling

Symfony Code Performance Profiling

Check Code Performance in Dev, Test, Staging & Production

Check Code Performance in Dev, Test, Staging & Production

↓ Our footer now uses the colors of the Ukrainian flag because Symfony stands with the people of Ukraine.

Avatar of Eugene Leonovich, a Symfony contributor

Thanks Eugene Leonovich (@rybakit) for being a Symfony contributor

8 commits • 130 lines changed

View all contributors that help us make Symfony

Become a Symfony contributor

Be an active part of the community and contribute ideas, code and bug fixes. Both experts and newcomers are welcome.

Learn how to contribute

Symfony™ is a trademark of Symfony SAS. All rights reserved.

  • What is Symfony?
    • Symfony at a Glance
    • Symfony Components
    • Case Studies
    • Symfony Releases
    • Security Policy
    • Logo & Screenshots
    • Trademark & Licenses
    • symfony1 Legacy
  • Learn Symfony
    • Symfony Docs
    • Symfony Book
    • Reference
    • Bundles
    • Best Practices
    • Training
    • eLearning Platform
    • Certification
  • Screencasts
    • Learn Symfony
    • Learn PHP
    • Learn JavaScript
    • Learn Drupal
    • Learn RESTful APIs
  • Community
    • SymfonyConnect
    • Support
    • How to be Involved
    • Code of Conduct
    • Events & Meetups
    • Projects using Symfony
    • Downloads Stats
    • Contributors
    • Backers
  • Blog
    • Events & Meetups
    • A week of symfony
    • Case studies
    • Cloud
    • Community
    • Conferences
    • Diversity
    • Documentation
    • Living on the edge
    • Releases
    • Security Advisories
    • SymfonyInsight
    • Twig
    • SensioLabs
  • Services
    • SensioLabs services
    • Train developers
    • Manage your project quality
    • Improve your project performance
    • Host Symfony projects
    Deployed on
Follow Symfony
Search by Algolia