Adding cookie session store back to Rails API app

Question

I have a Rails-API app. More or less "out of the box" but I want to add back cookie-based session store. Here is what I've done:

app/controllers/application_controller.rb

+ include ::ActionController::Cookies

config/application.rb

+ config.middleware.insert_after ActiveRecord::QueryCache, ActionDispatch::Cookies
+ config.middleware.insert_after ActionDispatch::Cookies, ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore

created config/initializers/secret_token.rb

+ Namespace::Application.config.secret_token = 'token'

created config/initializers/session_store.rb

+ Namespace::Application.config.session_store :cookie_store, :key => '_namespace_key'

When I inspect the session in a controller it results:

<Rack::Session::Abstract::SessionHash:0x3fdadc5daa24 not yet loaded>

However it does appear that data is being written to and used.

But, in my browser the cookie itself is being named as '_session_id' instead of '_namespace_key'

I thought I added back every piece required for cookie based session storage, but I appear to be missing something else. Any ideas?

Answer 1

If you're on Rails 5, and want to preserve config.api_only = true you could extend the middleware to add the sessions layer, adding this code after class Application < Rails::Application in config/application.rb

config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Cookies
config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore, key: '_namespace_key'

This could come in handy when you want to have a rails api-only enabled app but have to manage user sessions with an administration panel like ActiveAdmin or Rails_Admin.

Answer 2

You need to remove these middleware declarations from your application.rb file and add this:

config.api_only = false

This will enable session management the way you want if there is a configured session_store somewhere in your initialisers (which you have). This isn't clearly documented, but that's what you're supposed to do.

Example here.

Answer 3

This line is ignored because you are not using the full Rails stack:

::Rails.application.config.session_store :cookie_store,
  :key => '_namespace_key'

So instead, your session is using the default session key set here. However, you can pass these arguments directly by replacing:

config.middleware.insert_after 
  ActionDispatch::Cookies, ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore

with:

config.middleware.insert_after
  ActionDispatch::Cookies, ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore,
  :key => '_namespace_key'

Here's a full list of options you can pass (with a rough idea of their defaults, since some may be overridden by modules in Rails).

Answer 4

This worked for me in Rails 6.0, application.rb:

config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Cookies
config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore
config.middleware.insert_after(ActionDispatch::Cookies, ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore)

If you want to set custom key (yes, it has to be set twice):

config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Cookies
config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore, key: '_your_app'
config.middleware.insert_after(ActionDispatch::Cookies, ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore, key: '_your_app')

And lastly, if you want to add expiration date - it's done here:

config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Cookies
config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore, key: '_your_app', expire_after: 20.years 
config.middleware.insert_after(ActionDispatch::Cookies, ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore, key: '_your_app')

Would have loved linking to documentation, but there's none.