socket.io session does not update when req.session changes - node.js

Question

I am currently working on a basic app where a user needs to authenticate (with passportJS) and then send a message to my server with socket.io. Here is the nodeJS code:
var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var favicon = require('serve-favicon');
var logger = require('morgan');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var expressSession = require('express-session');
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var passport = require('passport');
var LocalStrategy = require('passport-local').Strategy;
var routes = require('./routes/index');
var api = require('./api/index');
var auth = require('./routes/auth');
var session = expressSession({secret: 'mySecret', resave: true, saveUninitialized: true});
var port = normalizePort(process.env.PORT || '3000');
var app = express();
var server = require('http').createServer(app);
var io = require('socket.io')(server);
var sharedsession = require('express-socket.io-session');
// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.set('port', port);
//app.use(favicon(path.join(__dirname, 'public', 'favicon.ico')));
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(session);
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use('/bower_components', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'bower_components')));
app.use('/', routes);
app.use('/api', api);
app.use('/auth', auth);
// passport config
var User = require('./models/user');
passport.use(new LocalStrategy({
usernameField: 'email'
}, User.authenticate()));
passport.use(require('./strategies/facebook'));
passport.use(require('./strategies/google'));
passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
done(null, { id: user._id });
});
passport.deserializeUser(function(obj, done) {
done(null, obj);
});
io.use(sharedsession(session, {
autoSave:true
}));
io.on('connection', function(socket) {
console.log('user connected');
console.log(socket.handshake.session);
socket.on('message-new', function(data) {
console.log('receiving message to create');
console.log(socket.handshake.session);
});
socket.on('disconnect', function() {
console.log('user disconnected');
});
});
server.listen(port);
So as you can see I use express-socket.io-session to be able to access the session in my socket and it is supposed to be the same than req.session. So at first when a user is connected to the socket.io (but not authenticated), his socket.handshake.session is equal to req.session so:
Session {
cookie:
{ path: '/',
_expires: null,
originalMaxAge: null,
httpOnly: true } }
once he authenticates, req.session becomes:
cookie:
{ path: '/',
_expires: null,
originalMaxAge: null,
httpOnly: true },
passport: { user: { id: 56a13e58150f42fc29b44b7a } } }
but when I emit a message-new from the client and that it displays socket.handshake.session, it is still equals to
Session {
cookie:
{ path: '/',
_expires: null,
originalMaxAge: null,
httpOnly: true } }
So the socket's session was not updated when req.session was. How can I change this behavior? I need to be able to know in my socket if the user is connected or not...

Answer 1

Inside your event listener 'new message' you can tell the session to reload, the docs don't explicitly say this, but it shares some of the same methods with the express-session
Inside your event listener you can tell session to reload
socket.handshake.session.reload(function(err) {
// this will give you the update session info
}
With the 'express-session' you can use the same method as in the docs