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A complete overview of PHP session handler life cycle
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session-handler-life-cycle.md

A complete overview of PHP session handler life cycle

The purpose of this document is to provide a complete overview of the PHP session handler life cycle updated to version 7.0 or above. In particular, I want to emphasize what methods and in what order are called when the native PHP functions are used for session management.
I created this document because the information on the web and the official documentation are very superficial on this topic, in particular on what concerns the implementation of a safe and stable session handler.

Session handler interfaces

There are three interfaces that can be implemented to create a session handler. The first one is mandatory and the other two are optional.

  • SessionHandlerInterface (PHP 5 >= 5.4.0, PHP 7)
    SessionHandlerInterface is an interface which defines a prototype for creating a custom session handler.

    • open( string $savePath , string $sessionName ) : bool
      Re-initialize existing session, or creates a new one. Called when a session starts or when session_start() is invoked.
      Return value should be true for success or false for failure.

    • read ( string $sessionId ) : string
      Reads the session data from the session storage, and returns the results. Before this method is called SessionHandlerInterface::open() is invoked.
      The data returned by this method will be decoded internally by PHP using the unserialization method specified in session.serialize_handler. The resulting data will be used to populate the $_SESSION superglobal.
      Return value should be the session data or an empty string.

    • write ( string $sessionId , string $sessionData ) : bool
      Writes the session data to the session storage.
      SessionHandlerInterface::close() is called immediately after this function. This method encodes the session data from the $_SESSION superglobal to a serialized string and passes this along with the session ID to this method for storage. The serialization method used is specified in the session.serialize_handler ini setting.
      Return value should be true for success or false for failure.

    • close ( void ) : bool
      Closes the current session.
      This function is automatically executed when closing the session, or explicitly via session_write_close().
      Return value should be true for success or false for failure.

    • destroy ( string $sessionId ) : bool
      Destroys a session.
      Called by session_regenerate_id() (with $destroy = TRUE), session_destroy() and when session_decode() fails.
      Return value should be true for success or false for failure.

    • gc ( int $maxlifetime ) : int
      Cleans up expired sessions.
      Called by session_start(), based on session.gc_divisor, session.gc_probability and session.gc_maxlifetime settings.
      Return value should be true for success or false for failure.

  • SessionIdInterface (PHP 5 >= 5.5.1, PHP 7)
    SessionIdInterface is an additional interface that gives the possibility to manage the creation of a session ID in a personalized way.

    • create_sid ( void ) : string
      This method is invoked internally when a new session id is needed.
      The returned ID should be generated checking for collision with other saved sessions. However, from PHP 7 session_create_id ([ string $prefix ] ) : string (documentation) is available. This function creates new collision free (if session is active) session ID for the current session in according to ini settings: session.sid_length (length of session ID string) and session.sid_bits_per_character (number of bits in encoded session ID character).
      No parameter is needed and return value should be the new session id created.

  • SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface (PHP 7)
    SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface is an additional interface that completes the functionalities of a session handler object.

    • validateId( string $sessionId ) : bool
      Validate session ID.
      This method is called when the session.use_strict_mode ini setting is set to 1 in order to avoid uninitialized session ID. The validity of session ID is checked on starting and on regenerating if strict mode is enabled.
      Return value should be true if the session ID is valid otherwise false. If false is returned a new session id will be generated.

    • updateTimestamp( string $sessionId, string $sessionData ) : bool
      Update timestamp of a session.
      This method is called when the session.lazy_write ini setting is set to 1 and no changes are made to session variables. In other words, when the session need to be closed, if lazy_write mode is enabled and $_SESSION is not modified, this method is called instead of SessionHandlerInterface::write() in order to update session timestamp without rewriting all session data.
      Return value should be true for success or false for failure.

SessionHandler life cycle

In this part I tried to translate the behavior of native PHP session function from the point-of-view of a session handler.
Note that the code written below does not work at all, it has only to be understanded such as an explanation of what PHP does when a custom session handler is set and native session functions are invoked.

  • session_start(); (documentation)
    Creates a session or resumes the current one based on a session identifier passed via a GET or POST request, or passed via a cookie.

    $savePath    = ini_get('session.save_path');
$sessionName = ini_get('session.name');
SessionHandlerInterface::open($savePath, $sessionName);

// find $sessionId from server request, for example from $_COOKIES superglobal.
if (!isset($sessionId)) {
    $sessionId = SessionIdInterface::create_sid();
}
if (ini_get('session.use_strict_mode') && !SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface::validateId($sessionId)) {
    $sessionId = SessionIdInterface::create_sid();
}

$data = SessionHandlerInterface::read($sessionId);
// here PHP does Garbage Collection based on probability

if (ini_get('session.serialize_handler') === 'php_serialize') {
    $_SESSION = unserialize($data);
} else {
    session_decode($data);
}

  • session_commit(); or session_write_close(); (documentation)
    End the current session and store session data.

    if (ini_get('session.serialize_handler') === 'php_serialize') {
    $sessionData = serialize($_SESSION);
} else {
    $sessionData = session_encode();
}

// if session.lazy_write is enabled and $_SESSION is NOT changed:
    SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface::updateTimestamp($sessionId, $sessionData);
// else:
    SessionHandlerInterface::write($sessionId, $sessionData);

SessionHandlerInterface::close();

  • session_regenerate_id($deleteOldSession); (documentation)
    Update the current session id with a newly generated one.

    if ($deleteOldSession) {
    SessionHandlerInterface::destroy($sessionId);
} else {
    SessionHandlerInterface::write($sessionId, $sessionData);
}
SessionHandlerInterface::close();

$savePath    = ini_get('session.save_path');
$sessionName = ini_get('session.name');
SessionHandlerInterface::open($savePath, $sessionName);

$sessionId = SessionIdInterface::create_sid();
if (ini_get('session.use_strict_mode') && !SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface::validateId($sessionId)) {
    // A session ID is recreated even if it is collision free.
    // See the note below for more details.
    $sessionId = SessionIdInterface::create_sid();
}

SessionHandlerInterface::read($sessionId);

  • session_destroy(); (documentation)
    Destroys all data registered to a session.

    SessionHandlerInterface::destroy($sessionId);
SessionHandlerInterface::close();

  • session_unset(); (documentation)
    Free all session variables.

    $_SESSION = [];

  • session_gc(); (documentation)
    Perform session data garbage collection.

    $maxlifetime = (int) ini_get('session.gc_maxlifetime');
SessionHandlerInterface::gc($maxlifetime);


Note: there is a bug in functions session_regenerate_id() and session_create_id() (you can see https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=77178 for more information) that forces the recreation of session ID even when it is collision free.
After new session ID is created with create_sid(), the method validateId() is called and if it returns false, which means that the session does not exist in storage, session ID is recreated.
While we wait for the fixation of this bug, a simple workaround can be the following:

class CustomSessionHandler implements SessionHandlerInterface,
                                      SessionIdInterface,
                                      SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface
{
    private $lastCreatedId;
  
    // ...methods implementation...
    
    public function create_sid()
    {
        $this->lastCreatedId = // create session ID
        return $this->lastCreatedId;
    }
 
    public function validateId($sessionId)
    {
        if ($sessionId === $this->lastCreatedId) {
            return true;
        }
        // checks session existance
    }
}


I hope this analysis will help all the developers interested in understanding in detail the native session management performed by PHP and what a custom session handler should do.
Any comment or suggestion is appreciated.

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