Non persistent cookie in a web farm.

[brad]

Hi,
Im using classic ASP (3.0) and I have a web farm with 2 webservers
(webserver A and webserver B, both windows server 2003). I do not want
to store any client specific information on the webserver (therefore do
not intend to use the session object- as you cannot gaurantee which
server the user will go to). I want to store a small value (e.g. a Y/N
value or an Id) on the client machine for the duration of their
browsing session, hence I want to use a non persistent cookie (in
client memory) not a persistent cookie that will be written to disk.

Q. Therefore if I create a non persistent cookie (i.e. it resides in
the client browsers memory) and set this when the user was on webserver
A, can I read the value server side on subsequent requests even if the
user is redirected back to webserver B? As the webservers are part of
the same domain name Im assuming I can..?

Q. Using non persistent cookies (in client in memory) im assuming the
session Id that gets created has no use, as I am using client side
storage, hence it is worth disabling this on the webserver for
performance reasons?

Q. Is there anyway using non persistent cookies that a user can see the
values of this cookie client side, are their any downloadable tools for
example they can run?

Im aware of the issues with size of using cookies and users can disable
them, my question is more related to using them in a web farm. Im also
not intended in the short term to upgrade to asp.net as Im aware there
are alternatives for state storage in this. Hope someone can clarify
these points for me. Note: I see many articles talking about cookies
but none relating to web farms, those that do talk solely about the
session object (Server side), none really go further to talk about (non
persistent / persistent cookie usage with web farms client side.

many thanks in advance.
Brad

 

[Mark Schupp]

Hi,
Im using classic ASP (3.0) and I have a web farm with 2 webservers
(webserver A and webserver B, both windows server 2003). I do not want
to store any client specific information on the webserver (therefore do
not intend to use the session object- as you cannot gaurantee which
server the user will go to). I want to store a small value (e.g. a Y/N
value or an Id) on the client machine for the duration of their
browsing session, hence I want to use a non persistent cookie (in
client memory) not a persistent cookie that will be written to disk.

Q. Therefore if I create a non persistent cookie (i.e. it resides in
the client browsers memory) and set this when the user was on webserver
A, can I read the value server side on subsequent requests even if the
user is redirected back to webserver B? As the webservers are part of
the same domain name Im assuming I can..?

as long as the browser sees the exact same host and domain name (
www.yoursite.com and not "server1.yoursite.com" and "server2.yoursite.com")
then the cookie will be sent to either server. The browser will not even
know that it is pointed at a server-farm.

Q. Using non persistent cookies (in client in memory) im assuming the
session Id that gets created has no use, as I am using client side
storage, hence it is worth disabling this on the webserver for
performance reasons?

Yes. However, if you use any code that uses the session object (like
session.codepage) you will need to leave sessions enabled. To remove such
code you can use the @CODEPAGE directive.

Q. Is there anyway using non persistent cookies that a user can see the
values of this cookie client side, are their any downloadable tools for
example they can run?

The could see the values using any utility that displays HTTP headers. I
believe there are a number of utilities freely available for FireFox. I
haven't seen a free one for IE but I haven't looked lately. If it is
critical to protect the data and you cannot keep it on the server you should
encrypt it.