Are there any best practices for setting session lifetimes in PHP to ensure security and efficiency?

Setting appropriate session lifetimes in PHP is crucial for both security and efficiency. A session lifetime that is too long can increase the risk of session hijacking, while a session lifetime that is too short can result in frequent session regeneration and unnecessary overhead. It is recommended to set session lifetimes based on the specific needs of the application, balancing security requirements with user experience. 

// Set session lifetime to 30 minutes
session_start();
$session_lifetime = 1800; // 30 minutes in seconds

// Set session cookie expiration time
ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime', $session_lifetime);

// Set session garbage collection probability to 1 to ensure session data is properly cleaned up
ini_set('session.gc_probability', 1);
ini_set('session.gc_divisor', 1);

// Set session expiration time
ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime', $session_lifetime);

// Regenerate session ID every time the session is started to prevent session fixation attacks
session_regenerate_id(true);

Keywords

session lifetime security efficiency PHP session management

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