This guide describes how to use Spring Session to ensure that WebSocket messages keep your HttpSession alive.

Spring Session’s WebSocket support works only with Spring’s WebSocket support. Specifically,it does not work with using JSR-356 directly, because JSR-356 does not have a mechanism for intercepting incoming WebSocket messages.

1. HttpSession Setup

The first step is to integrate Spring Session with the HttpSession. These steps are already outlined in the HttpSession Guide.

Please make sure you have already integrated Spring Session with HttpSession before proceeding.

2. Spring Configuration

In a typical Spring WebSocket application, you would implement WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer. For example, the configuration might look something like the following:

@Configuration
@EnableScheduling
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

	@Override
	public void registerStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) {
		registry.addEndpoint("/messages").withSockJS();
	}

	@Override
	public void configureMessageBroker(MessageBrokerRegistry registry) {
		registry.enableSimpleBroker("/queue/", "/topic/");
		registry.setApplicationDestinationPrefixes("/app");
	}

}

We can update our configuration to use Spring Session’s WebSocket support. The following example shows how to do so:

src/main/java/samples/config/WebSocketConfig.java
@Configuration
@EnableScheduling
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig extends AbstractSessionWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer<Session> { (1)

	@Override
	protected void configureStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) { (2)
		registry.addEndpoint("/messages").withSockJS();
	}

	@Override
	public void configureMessageBroker(MessageBrokerRegistry registry) {
		registry.enableSimpleBroker("/queue/", "/topic/");
		registry.setApplicationDestinationPrefixes("/app");
	}

}

To hook in the Spring Session support we only need to change two things:

1 Instead of implementing WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer, we extend AbstractSessionWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer
2 We rename the registerStompEndpoints method to configureStompEndpoints

What does AbstractSessionWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer do behind the scenes?

  • WebSocketConnectHandlerDecoratorFactory is added as a WebSocketHandlerDecoratorFactory to WebSocketTransportRegistration. This ensures a custom SessionConnectEvent is fired that contains the WebSocketSession. The WebSocketSession is necessary to terminate any WebSocket connections that are still open when a Spring Session is terminated.

  • SessionRepositoryMessageInterceptor is added as a HandshakeInterceptor to every StompWebSocketEndpointRegistration. This ensures that the Session is added to the WebSocket properties to enable updating the last accessed time.

  • SessionRepositoryMessageInterceptor is added as a ChannelInterceptor to our inbound ChannelRegistration. This ensures that every time an inbound message is received, that the last accessed time of our Spring Session is updated.

  • WebSocketRegistryListener is created as a Spring bean. This ensures that we have a mapping of all of the Session IDs to the corresponding WebSocket connections. By maintaining this mapping, we can close all the WebSocket connections when a Spring Session (HttpSession) is terminated.

3. websocket Sample Application

The websocket sample application demonstrates how to use Spring Session with WebSockets.

3.1. Running the websocket Sample Application

You can run the sample by obtaining the source code and invoking the following command:

$ ./gradlew :spring-session-sample-boot-websocket:bootRun

For the purposes of testing session expiration, you may want to change the session expiration to be 1 minute (the default is 30 minutes) by adding the following configuration property before starting the application:

src/main/resources/application.properties
server.servlet.session.timeout=1m # Session timeout. If a duration suffix is not specified, seconds will be used.
For the sample to work, you must install Redis 2.8+ on localhost and run it with the default port (6379). Alternatively, you can update the RedisConnectionFactory to point to a Redis server. Another option is to use Docker to run Redis on localhost. See Docker Redis repository for detailed instructions.

You should now be able to access the application at http://localhost:8080/

3.2. Exploring the websocket Sample Application

Now you can try using the application. Authenticate with the following information:

  • Username rob

  • Password password

Now click the Login button. You should now be authenticated as the user rob.

Open an incognito window and access http://localhost:8080/

You are prompted with a login form. Authenticate with the following information:

  • Username luke

  • Password password

Now send a message from rob to luke. The message should appear.

Wait for two minutes and try sending a message from rob to luke again. You can see that the message is no longer sent.

Why two minutes?

Spring Session expires in 60 seconds, but the notification from Redis is not guaranteed to happen within 60 seconds. To ensure the socket is closed in a reasonable amount of time, Spring Session runs a background task every minute at 00 seconds that forcibly cleans up any expired sessions. This means you need to wait at most two minutes before the WebSocket connection is terminated.

You can now try accessing http://localhost:8080/ You are prompted to authenticate again. This demonstrates that the session properly expires.

Now repeat the same exercise, but instead of waiting two minutes, send a message from each of the users every 30 seconds. You can see that the messages continue to be sent. Try accessing http://localhost:8080/ You are not prompted to authenticate again. This demonstrates the session is kept alive.

Only messages sent from a user keep the session alive. This is because only messages coming from a user imply user activity. Received messages do not imply activity and, thus, do not renew the session expiration.