Servlet Session issues

[Joel McNary]

I am trying to store login information in an HttpSession and then check that the user is logged in at the beginning of each servlet in our system. Setting the information seems to work OK; however, when I go to retreive that information I discover that the session does not exist. What am I doing wrong here?
(I'm using Applets that communicate with servlets which in turn communicate with EJBs).
//Set the information in one servlet

public Boolean validateLogin(java.io.ObjectInputStream inputFromApplet) throws java.rmi.RemoteException{
String userName, password;
Boolean returnValue;
com.convergents.ets.ppms.persistence.employee.EmpKey aKey;
javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest aRequest;
javax.servlet.http.HttpSession aSession;

try{
userName = (String)inputFromApplet.readObject();
password = (String)inputFromApplet.readObject();
}
catch(Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
return null;
}
returnValue = this.getEmpSessBean().validateLogin(userName, password);
if(returnValue.booleanValue() == true){
aKey = this.getEmpSessBean().getEmployeeForLogin(userName);
aRequest = this.getCurrentRequest();
aSession = aRequest.getSession(true);
if(aSession.isNew() == false){
aSession.invalidate();
System.out.println("Invalidating session");
aSession = aRequest.getSession(true);
}
System.out.println("Got Session.  Max InactiveInterval is: " + aSession.getMaxInactiveInterval());
System.out.println("Setting attribute "+CURRENT_EMPLOYEE_PK+" to " + aKey.toString());
aSession.setAttribute(CURRENT_EMPLOYEE_PK, aKey);
}
return returnValue;
}

//Get the value in another servlet

public boolean preCondition(javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest request, javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, java.io.IOException {
// Get customer information from session
javax.servlet.http.HttpSession session = request.getSession(false);
// We should have a previous session, otherwise it's an error
if (session == null) {
System.out.println("No session found....");
return false;
}
// We should have a customer property stored in the session, otherwise it's an error
if (session.getAttribute(AppletServletBridgeServlet.CURRENT_EMPLOYEE_PK) == null) {
System.out.println("No Current Employee found");
return false;
}
return true;
}

//And the Reult of the println

Got Session.  Max InactiveInterval is: 1800
Setting attribute CurrentEmployeePK to Emp_no: 201; Emp_typ_cde: I
No session found....

[William Brogden]

Are both servlets in the same web application? Sessions are only visible inside the web application.
Bill

[tom boshell]

Hello,
Couldn't you just call request.getSession(); in your preCondition method instead of stipulating the value false. That retrieves the session associated with the user. Then if you are worried about it being new use the test session.isNew(), If it is new then that test failed and you can redirect to the login or whatever,
Tom

[Joel McNary]

Originally posted by William Brogden
Are both servlets in the same web application? Sessions are only visible inside the web application.

Yes, both are running in the same web application.

Originally posted by tom boshell
Hello,
Couldn't you just call request.getSession(); in your preCondition method instead of stipulating the value false. That retrieves the session associated with the user. Then if you are worried about it being new use the test session.isNew(), If it is new then that test failed and you can redirect to the login or whatever

This is what I am doing when the user logs in. However, I need not only to know that a valid user is logged in but also who that user is; thus, I don't want to create a new session. I need the old one and the information about who is logged in.
[This message has been edited by Joel McNary (edited September 14, 2001).]

[Rama Raghavan]

Session IDs (if one exist) get passed on each request by the client either via cookies or URL encode.
Are cookies turned off in the browser or your web.xml descriptor ?
_________________________
Rama Raghavan
SCJP2
[This message has been edited by Rama Raghavan (edited September 14, 2001).]

[Joel McNary]

Thank you all for your help, but I managed to identify the issue. For general knowledge, here is what was going on:
The applet would establish a connection to a servlet to pass data back and forth. However, this was a different session from the one that the browser had initiated. Thus, when I set the current employee information in the session of the applet's connection, that information would not be there when the browser went to another page. I worked around this by having the next page the browser go to take userName as a URL parameter and set up the current user there, and then redirect to the appropriate servlet.
Again, that you all for you help.