Symfony provides a session object and several utilities that you can use to store information about the user between requests.
Sessions are provided by the HttpFoundation component, which is included in all Symfony applications, no matter how you installed it. Before using the sessions, check their default configuration:
.. configuration-block::
.. code-block:: yaml
# config/packages/framework.yaml
framework:
session:
# enables the support of sessions in the app
enabled: true
# ID of the service used for session storage.
# NULL means that Symfony uses PHP default session mechanism
handler_id: null
# improves the security of the cookies used for sessions
cookie_secure: 'auto'
cookie_samesite: 'lax'
.. code-block:: xml
<!-- config/packages/framework.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:framework="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony https://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">
<framework:config>
<!--
enabled: enables the support of sessions in the app
handler-id: ID of the service used for session storage
NULL means that Symfony uses PHP default session mechanism
cookie-secure and cookie-samesite: improves the security of the cookies used for sessions
-->
<framework:session enabled="true"
handler-id="null"
cookie-secure="auto"
cookie-samesite="lax"/>
</framework:config>
</container>
.. code-block:: php
// config/packages/framework.php
use Symfony\Config\FrameworkConfig;
return static function (FrameworkConfig $framework) {
$framework->session()
// enables the support of sessions in the app
->enabled(true)
// ID of the service used for session storage
// NULL means that Symfony uses PHP default session mechanism
->handlerId(null)
// improves the security of the cookies used for sessions
->cookieSecure('auto')
->cookieSamesite('lax')
;
};
Setting the handler_id config option to null means that Symfony will
use the native PHP session mechanism. The session metadata files will be stored
outside of the Symfony application, in a directory controlled by PHP. Although
this usually simplify things, some session expiration related options may not
work as expected if other applications that write to the same directory have
short max lifetime settings.
If you prefer, you can use the session.handler.native_file service as
handler_id to let Symfony manage the sessions itself. Another useful option
is save_path, which defines the directory where Symfony will store the
session metadata files:
.. configuration-block::
.. code-block:: yaml
# config/packages/framework.yaml
framework:
session:
# ...
handler_id: 'session.handler.native_file'
save_path: '%kernel.project_dir%/var/sessions/%kernel.environment%'
.. code-block:: xml
<!-- config/packages/framework.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:framework="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony https://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">
<framework:config>
<framework:session enabled="true"
handler-id="session.handler.native_file"
save-path="%kernel.project_dir%/var/sessions/%kernel.environment%"/>
</framework:config>
</container>
.. code-block:: php
// config/packages/framework.php
use Symfony\Config\FrameworkConfig;
return static function (FrameworkConfig $framework) {
$framework->session()
// ...
->handlerId('session.handler.native_file')
->savePath('%kernel.project_dir%/var/sessions/%kernel.environment%')
;
};
Check out the Symfony config reference to learn more about the other available :ref:`Session configuration options <config-framework-session>`. You can also :doc:`store sessions in a database </session/database>`.
The sessions is available througth the Request and the RequestStack. Symfony provides a request_stack service that is injected in your services and controllers if you type-hint an argument with :class:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\RequestStack`:
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\RequestStack;
class SomeService
{
private $requestStack;
public function __construct(RequestStack $requestStack)
{
$this->requestStack = $requestStack;
}
public function someMethod()
{
$session = $this->requestStack->getSession();
// stores an attribute in the session for later reuse
$session->set('attribute-name', 'attribute-value');
// gets an attribute by name
$foo = $session->get('foo');
// the second argument is the value returned when the attribute doesn't exist
$filters = $session->get('filters', []);
// ...
}
}
.. deprecated:: 5.3
The ``SessionInterface`` and ``session`` service were deprecated in
Symfony 5.3. Instead, inject the ``RequestStack`` service to get the session
object of the current request.
Stored attributes remain in the session for the remainder of that user's session. By default, session attributes are key-value pairs managed with the :class:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Session\\Attribute\\AttributeBag` class.
.. deprecated:: 5.3
The ``NamespacedAttributeBag`` class is deprecated since Symfony 5.3.
If you need this feature, you will have to implement the class yourself.
If your application needs are complex, you may prefer to use
:ref:`namespaced session attributes <namespaced-attributes>` which are managed with the
:class:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Session\\Attribute\\NamespacedAttributeBag`
class. Before using them, override the session_listener service definition to build
your Session object with the default AttributeBag by the NamespacedAttributeBag:
.. configuration-block::
.. code-block:: yaml
# config/services.yaml
session.factory:
autoconfigure: true
class: App\Session\SessionFactory
arguments:
- '@request_stack'
- '@session.storage.factory'
- ['@session_listener', 'onSessionUsage']
- '@session.namespacedattributebag'
session.namespacedattributebag:
class: Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Attribute\NamespacedAttributeBag
.. code-block:: xml
<!-- config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">
<services>
<service id="session" class="Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session" public="true">
<argument type="service" id="session.storage"/>
<argument type="service" id="session.namespacedattributebag"/>
<argument type="service" id="session.flash_bag"/>
</service>
<service id="session.namespacedattributebag"
class="Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Attribute\NamespacedAttributeBag"
/>
</services>
</container>
.. code-block:: php
// config/services.php
namespace Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Loader\Configurator;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Attribute\NamespacedAttributeBag;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session;
return function(ContainerConfigurator $configurator) {
$services = $configurator->services();
$services->set('session', Session::class)
->public()
->args([
ref('session.storage'),
ref('session.namespacedattributebag'),
ref('session.flash_bag'),
])
;
$services->set('session.namespacedattributebag', NamespacedAttributeBag::class);
};
Sessions are automatically started whenever you read, write or even check for the existence of data in the session. This may hurt your application performance because all users will receive a session cookie. In order to prevent that, you must completely avoid accessing the session.
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 1
session/database
session/locale_sticky_session
session/php_bridge
session/proxy_examples