Spring Session with Spring Boot

Introduction

Spring Session is a powerful project that helps to manage user sessions in Spring applications. It provides a way to store session data in various backends such as Redis, JDBC, and more, which allows for scalability and persistence. In this tutorial, we will explore how to integrate Spring Session with a Spring Boot application from scratch.

Prerequisites

Before we get started, make sure you have the following:

• Java Development Kit (JDK) 8 or higher.
• Apache Maven installed on your machine.
• An IDE (like IntelliJ or Eclipse) for Java development.

Setting Up Your Spring Boot Project

To create a new Spring Boot project, you can use Spring Initializr. Go to start.spring.io and select the following options:

• Project: Maven Project
• Language: Java
• Spring Boot: 2.x.x
• Dependencies: Spring Web, Spring Session, Spring Data JPA (if using a relational database)

Once you have selected your dependencies, click on "Generate" to download your project.

Adding Spring Session Dependency

If you haven't added Spring Session during project setup, you can include it later by adding the following dependency in your pom.xml file:

    org.springframework.session
    spring-session-core
    2.x.x


                

Replace 2.x.x with the latest version available.

Configuration for Spring Session

Depending on where you want to store your session data, you will need to add specific configurations. For example, for Redis, you will need to add the Redis dependency:

    org.springframework.boot
    spring-boot-starter-data-redis


                

In your application properties file (src/main/resources/application.properties), add the following configuration:

spring.redis.host=localhost
spring.redis.port=6379
spring.session.store-type=redis

                

Creating a Sample Controller

Let's create a simple REST controller to demonstrate session management. Create a new class SessionController.java inside your controller package:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/session")
public class SessionController {

    @GetMapping("/set")
    public String setSession(@SessionAttribute("name") String name) {
        // Set session attribute
        return "Session attribute set for " + name;
    }

    @GetMapping("/get")
    public String getSession(@SessionAttribute(name = "name", required = false) String name) {
        // Retrieve session attribute
        return name != null ? "Session attribute: " + name : "No session attribute found.";
    }
}

                

Testing the Application

To run your application, use the following Maven command in your project directory:

mvn spring-boot:run

                

Once the application is running, you can test the session endpoints using Postman or any REST client.

To set a session attribute, send a GET request to http://localhost:8080/session/set?name=YourName.

To retrieve the session attribute, send a GET request to http://localhost:8080/session/get.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered how to integrate Spring Session with a Spring Boot application. We explored how to set up a project, add dependencies, configure session storage, and create a simple REST controller to manage session attributes. Spring Session provides a robust way to handle user sessions, making your applications more scalable and resilient.