Flask Session Management

Also see - Flask Stuff

Various References

• https://stormpath.com/blog/part-two-solving-flask-authentication-problem/
• http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/appcontext/
• http://runnable.com/Uhf58hcCo9RSAACs/using-sessions-in-flask-for-python
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6972999/flask-user-authentication
• https://github.com/mbr/flask-kvsession
• https://pythonhosted.org/Flask-Security/
• https://www.openshift.com/blogs/use-flask-login-to-add-user-authentication-to-your-python-application

OpenShift

• https://www.openshift.com/blogs/use-flask-login-to-add-user-authentication-to-your-python-application

Server Side Session with Redis

• http://flask.pocoo.org/snippets/75/

import pickle
from datetime import timedelta
from uuid import uuid4
from redis import Redis
from werkzeug.datastructures import CallbackDict
from flask.sessions import SessionInterface, SessionMixin


class RedisSession(CallbackDict, SessionMixin):

    def __init__(self, initial=None, sid=None, new=False):
        def on_update(self):
            self.modified = True
        CallbackDict.__init__(self, initial, on_update)
        self.sid = sid
        self.new = new
        self.modified = False


class RedisSessionInterface(SessionInterface):
    serializer = pickle
    session_class = RedisSession

    def __init__(self, redis=None, prefix='session:'):
        if redis is None:
            redis = Redis()
        self.redis = redis
        self.prefix = prefix

    def generate_sid(self):
        return str(uuid4())

    def get_redis_expiration_time(self, app, session):
        if session.permanent:
            return app.permanent_session_lifetime
        return timedelta(days=1)

    def open_session(self, app, request):
        sid = request.cookies.get(app.session_cookie_name)
        if not sid:
            sid = self.generate_sid()
            return self.session_class(sid=sid, new=True)
        val = self.redis.get(self.prefix + sid)
        if val is not None:
            data = self.serializer.loads(val)
            return self.session_class(data, sid=sid)
        return self.session_class(sid=sid, new=True)

    def save_session(self, app, session, response):
        domain = self.get_cookie_domain(app)
        if not session:
            self.redis.delete(self.prefix + session.sid)
            if session.modified:
                response.delete_cookie(app.session_cookie_name,
                                       domain=domain)
            return
        redis_exp = self.get_redis_expiration_time(app, session)
        cookie_exp = self.get_expiration_time(app, session)
        val = self.serializer.dumps(dict(session))
        self.redis.setex(self.prefix + session.sid, val,
                         int(redis_exp.total_seconds()))
        response.set_cookie(app.session_cookie_name, session.sid,
                            expires=cookie_exp, httponly=True,
                            domain=domain)

Here is how to enable it:

app = Flask(__name__)
app.session_interface = RedisSessionInterface()

If you get an attribute error that total_seconds is missing it means you're using a version of Python older than 2.7. In this case you can use this function as a replacement for the total_seconds method:

def total_seconds(td):
    return td.days * 60 * 60 * 24 + td.seconds