So the crux of this question is just how to prevent CakePHP from de-authenticating a session ONLY after a period of inactivity.
So, if the user does nothing then I e
Configure::write('Session', array(
'defaults' => 'cake',
'timeout' => 1440, // The session will timeout after 30 minutes of inactivity
'cookieTimeout' => 1440, // The session cookie will live for at most 24 hours, this does not effect session timeouts
'checkAgent' => false,
'autoRegenerate' => true, // causes the session expiration time to reset on each page load
));
This works, though the session ends after few hours it is still better than ending in minutes.