For cluster-side support, add coherence-aspnet-session.jar in the classpath.

This will configure two distributed caches that are used for session storage and session attribute overflow, and start an Extend Proxy that an ASP.NET application can connect to. You can configure the address and port of the proxy service by using the coherence.aspnet.extend.address and coherence.aspnet.extend.port system properties.

The Coherence session provider requires an extend client's cache configuration file to include remote cache schemes for the session storage and session overflow caches. As with any remote cache, the cache name on the server and the client must be same name. The out of the box configuration is ready to be used with the default server-side configuration.

You can configure Coherence ASP.NET session support either by specifying configuration options in the CoherenceSession section of the appsettings.json file or by directly specifying configuration options in the UseCoherenceSession call.

appsettings.json example

{
  "AllowedHosts": "*",
  "CoherenceSession": {
    "ApplicationId": "demo-app",
    "Model": "split",
    "MinOverflowAttributeSize": 10240
  }
}

Program.cs example

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddControllers();

// configure Coherence session support based on Coherence configuration specified in appsettings.json:
builder.Services.UseCoherenceSession(builder.Configuration.GetSection(CoherenceSessionOptions.CONFIG));

// or configure Coherence session support directly in the code:
builder.Services.UseCoherenceSession(options =>
    {
        options.ApplicationId = "demo-app";
        options.Model = CoherenceSessionOptions.SessionModel.Split;
        options.MinOverflowAttributeSize = 10240;
    }
);
// uncomment when using .NET 8:
/*
builder.Services.AddDataProtection()
        .PersistKeysToFileSystem(new DirectoryInfo(@"/tmp"))
        .SetApplicationName("DemoApp");
*/
builder.Services.AddSession(options =>
    {
        options.IdleTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(900);
	options.Cookie.Name = ".DemoApp.Session";
        options.Cookie.HttpOnly = true;
        options.Cookie.IsEssential = true;
    }
);

var app = builder.Build();

// Adds the SessionMiddleware automatically enable session state for the application
app.UseSession();

app.MapControllers();
app.Run();

Configuration options:

• Model

  • Monolithic - Stores all session state as a single entity, serializing and deserializing all attributes as a single operation.

  • Split - Separates the larger session attributes into independent physical entities, one cache entry per attribute, and stores them in separate caches.

• MinOverflowAttributeSize - Defines the minimum size of the attributes that will be stored separately (applicable only for the Split session model).

• CoherenceConfig - Path to the Coherence configuration file (by default, set to assembly://Coherence/Tangosol.Config/coherence-config.xml).

• CacheConfig - Path to the Coherence cache configuration file (by default, set to assembly://Coherence.SessionStore/Tangosol.Config/coherence-aspnet-cache-config.xml).

• ApplicationId - Application ID that is used as a part of a session key. If not set, then the IHostEnvironment.ApplicationName value will be used instead.

If needed, you can provide the custom configuration, which has to be in sync with the server-side configuration, by overriding the default CoherenceConfig and CacheConfig files.

You configure the session model by setting the Model configuration option either in Program.cs or in the CoherenceSession section of appsettings.json file. When using the split model, you can configure the minimum size of the attributes that will be stored separately by setting the MinOverflowAttributeSize option to the minimum size (by default, it is set to 1024).