session expiry when using sessionState mode="SQLServer"

[Moe Sisko]

Using dotnet 2.0 sp1,

I've got ASP.NET session state working ok in SQLServer mode, but the
sessions never seem to expire.

e.g if I add a timeout attribute like so :

<sessionState mode="SQLServer"
sqlConnectionString="Integrated Security=SSPI;data source=localhost"
timeout="1" >

the session doesn't seem to timeout. The timeout works fine in inProc
session mode.

Any ideas ?
TIA

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> the session doesn't seem to timeout.
!> The timeout works fine in inProc session mode.

Session_End doesn't fire in SQL Server session state mode.

Unless you're running a multiple web server scenario ( web farm ),
when you need to keep track of user sessions in several servers,
don't use SQL Server *or* State Server to track session state
unless you're willing/able to take a performance hit.

The cost of serialization/deserialization affects performance.

In the case of State Server, the cost is about a 15% performance degradation.
In the case of SQL Server, the cost is about a 25% performance degradation.

 

[Moe Sisko]

re:
!> the session doesn't seem to timeout.
!> The timeout works fine in inProc session mode.

Session_End doesn't fire in SQL Server session state mode.

Juan,

Yes, I realise that Session_End doesn't fire in SQL Server state.

What I meant was, I was expecting the Session data to be automatically
cleared by SQL Server after the timeout minutes elapsed.
e.g. if I did : Session["abc"] = 5 , then after the timeout period
elapsed, I'm expecting : Session["abc"] to be null.

Otherwise the ASPStateTempSessions table in the session state database will
just keep growing. Old rows of this table doesn't seem to be getting cleaned
up.

 

[Moe Sisko]

What I meant was, I was expecting the Session data to be automatically
cleared by SQL Server after the timeout minutes elapsed.
e.g. if I did : Session["abc"] = 5 , then after the timeout period
elapsed, I'm expecting : Session["abc"] to be null.

Never mind, figured it out - SQL Server Agent needs to be running. It runs a
stored proc every minute which gets rid of expired session data.