How to set session timeout dynamically in Java web applications?

Question

I need to give my user a web interface to change the session timeout interval. So, different installations of the web application would be able to have different timeouts fo

Answer 1

Instead of using a ServletContextListener, use a HttpSessionListener.

In the sessionCreated() method, you can set the session timeout programmatically:

public class MyHttpSessionListener implements HttpSessionListener {

  public void sessionCreated(HttpSessionEvent event){
      event.getSession().setMaxInactiveInterval(15 * 60); // in seconds
  }

  public void sessionDestroyed(HttpSessionEvent event) {}

}

And don't forget to define the listener in the deployment descriptor:

...      
                                    
    com.example.MyHttpSessionListener
  

(or since Servlet version 3.0 you can use @WebListener annotation instead).

Still, I would recommend creating different web.xml files for each application and defining the session timeout there:

...
  
    15