Chapter 31. Externalize Sessions

Procedure 31.1. Externalize HTTP Sessions

1. Ensure the remote cache containers are defined in EAP's infinispan subsystem; in the example below the cache attribute in the remote-store element defines the cache name on the remote JBoss Data Grid server:

   <subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:infinispan:1.5">
     [...]
     <cache-container name="cacheContainer" default-cache="default-cache" module="org.jboss.as.clustering.web.infinispan" statistics-enabled="true">
       <transport lock-timeout="60000"/>
       <replicated-cache name="default-cache" mode="SYNC" batching="true">
         <remote-store cache="default" socket-timeout="60000" preload="true" passivation="false" purge="false" shared="true">
           <remote-server outbound-socket-binding="remote-jdg-server1"/>
           <remote-server outbound-socket-binding="remote-jdg-server2"/>
         </remote-store>
       </replicated-cache>
     </cache-container>
   </subsystem>

2. Define the location of the remote Red Hat JBoss Data Grid server by adding the networking information to the socket-binding-group:

   <socket-binding-group ...>
     <outbound-socket-binding name="remote-jdg-server1">
       <remote-destination host="JDGHostName1" port="11222"/>
     </outbound-socket-binding>
     <outbound-socket-binding name="remote-jdg-server2">
       <remote-destination host="JDGHostName2" port="11222"/>
     </outbound-socket-binding>
   </socket-binding-group>

3. Repeat the above steps for each cache-container and each Red Hat JBoss Data Grid server. Each server defined must have a separate <outbound-socket-binding> element defined.
4. Add passivation and cache information into the application's jboss-web.xml. In the following example cacheContainer is the name of the cache container, and default-cache is the name of the default cache located in this container. An example file is shown below:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    
   <jboss-web version="6.0"
              xmlns="http://www.jboss.com/xml/ns/javaee"
              xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
              xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.jboss.com/xml/ns/javaee http://www.jboss.org/j2ee/schema/jboss-web_6_0.xsd">
    
       <replication-config>
           <replication-trigger>SET</replication-trigger>   
           <replication-granularity>SESSION</replication-granularity>
           <cache-name>cacheContainer.default-cache</cache-name>
       </replication-config>
       
       <passivation-config>
           <use-session-passivation>true</use-session-passivation>
           <passivation-min-idle-time>900</passivation-min-idle-time>
           <passivation-max-idle-time>1800</passivation-max-idle-time>
       </passivation-config>
       
   </jboss-web>

   Note

   The passivation timeouts above are provided assuming that a typical session is abandoned within 15 minutes and uses the default HTTP session timeout in JBoss EAP of 30 minutes. These values may need to be adjusted based on each application's workload.