sessionsinformation

Session information is the data that describes an active user session in a computer system or network, used to maintain state across multiple requests in stateless protocols like HTTP. In many contexts the term appears as SessionInformation in codebases or more generally as the concept of managing user sessions.

A typical session information object includes several core elements: a unique session identifier, creation and last access timestamps, a configured timeout or expiration, and the identity of the authenticated user (the principal). It may also capture client-related data such as the IP address and user agent, and hold a collection of attributes or a map of transient state used by the application, such as preferences or permissions.

Management of session information covers creation on login or on first request, ongoing activity tracking, and expiration after inactivity or explicit invalidation on logout or compromise. In distributed architectures, session information is often stored in a centralized session store to enable replication and scalability across multiple servers.

Storage approaches vary. Some systems keep the full session state in memory or in a distributed cache, while others store only a session identifier on the client (via cookies or tokens) and retrieve full data from a server-side store as needed. Some designs may serialize state to the client, though this raises security and integrity considerations.

Security considerations for session information focus on preventing hijacking and fixation. Best practices include using secure and HttpOnly cookies, SameSite attributes, rotating session identifiers after privilege changes, binding sessions to client attributes, and applying reasonable timeouts and invalidation policies.

In software frameworks, session information is a common construct underlying session management APIs. For example, frameworks provide methods to create, read, update, and invalidate sessions, and some ecosystems expose a dedicated SessionInformation abstraction within a session registry. See also session management, cookies, tokens, and authentication.