Question

Using connect, express, and socket.io, I’m trying to allow my application to grab the session details when reconnecting. My sessions obviously work while the client is connected, but if I refresh the page on my browser, it forgets everything.
My session cookie is definitely the same, so it’s not that.

My code’s a big mish-mash of snippets I’ve taken from a number of different sources, since there doesn’t seem to be one complete example application out there.

What am I missing..?

var qs      = require('querystring'),
    express = require('express'),
    app     = express.createServer(),
    io      = require('socket.io').listen(app.listen(8000)),
    routes  = require('./routes'),
    pCookie = require('connect').utils.parseCookie,
    Session = require('connect').middleware.session.Session,
    RedStore= require('connect-redis')(express),
    sStore  = new RedStore();
   
// Configuration

app.configure(function(){
  app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
  app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
  app.use(express.bodyParser());
  app.use(express.methodOverride());
  app.use(express.cookieParser());
  app.use(express.session({ store: sStore, secret: 'tehsecretz' }));
  app.use(app.router);
  app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
});

app.configure('development', function(){
  app.use(express.errorHandler({ dumpExceptions: true, showStack: true }));
});

app.configure('production', function(){
  app.use(express.errorHandler());
});

// Routes

app.get('/', routes.index);

io.sockets.on('connection', function (client) {
    var hs = client.handshake,
        session = hs.session;

    console.log('A socket connected called: ' + hs.sessionId);

    var intervalId = setInterval(function() {
        hs.session.reload(function() {
            hs.session.touch().save();
        });
    }, 60 * 1000);

    if (!session.userName) {
        // Prompts the user for a name on the frontend
        client.emit('need-to-register');
    }

    client.on('message', function(msg, c) {
        console.log(session);
        console.log(msg);
    });

    client.on('register-user', function(data, fn) {
        // This retrieves the user's name
        // and - hopefully - saves it to the session.

        data = qs.parse(data);
        session.userName = data.username;

        hs.session.save();
        console.log('Saving: ', session);

        fn('ok');
    });

    client.on('disconnect', function() {
        clearInterval(intervalId);
    });
});

io.set('authorization', function (data, accept) {
    if (data.headers.cookie) {
        data.cookie = pCookie(data.headers.cookie);
        data.sessionId = data.cookie['connect.sid'];

        data.sessionStore = sStore;
        sStore.get(data.sessionId, function (err, session) {
            if (err || !session) {
                accept('Error', false);
            } else {
                console.log(data.sessionId, session);
                data.session = new Session(data, session);
                accept(null, true);
            }
        });
    } else {
        return accept('No cookie transmitted', false);
    }
});

Answer 1

Ugh. So in Daniel Baulig’s post on the subject, he referenced the identifier sessionID. I figured that was just poor convention (as I’m used to camelCase) and promptly changed it to sessionId in my code.

As I was debugging, I turned on MONITORing on my redis instance and noticed the session was being written to sess:undefined.

Turns out sessionID is special and is referenced internally as the actual identifier. Changing all instances of sessionId to sessionID allows me to have a better clue as to who is connecting!