Renewing/Refreshing Express Session - node.js

Question

In my app I restrict some access to some actions and pages if a user is not logged in. I have:
var restrict = function(req, res, next) {
if (!req.user) {
console.log("USER isn't logged in.")
return res.status(403).send('Access or action denied, please log in');
}
next();
}
app.get('/stocks', restrict, MainHandler.findAllStocksFromUser);
app.get('/stocks/:id', MainHandler.findStockByIdAndDates);
app.put('/stocks/:id/stockActions', restrict, MainHandler.handleStockAction);
I'm essentially trying to refresh a session everytime the client makes a request to the server so that the server doesn't logout the user/destroy the session when it shouldn't. For testing, I want the session to expire/the user to be logged out if 20 seconds go by without the user making an requests to the server. I have:
app.use(session({secret: 'secret', saveUninitialized: true, resave: true, expires: new Date(Date.now() + (20000))}));
Then I try to use middleware to refresh the expiration date every time the use makes a request:
// Session-persisted message middleware
app.use(function(req, res, next){
req.session.cookie.expires = new Date(Date.now() + 20000);
next();
});
But if I log in from the client, and click around, causing requests to the server, I still get the log-in error on the client after 20 seconds, despite trying to "refresh" the session in the middleware. I have also tried using maxAge using the same strategy with the middleware. Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

You can try define your session as follows
app.use (
session ({
secret: "secret",
saveUninitialized: true,
resave: true,
cookie: {
expires: 20 * 1000
}
})
);
and then refresh the session using
req.session.touch()
or you could define your session as
app.use (
session ({
secret: "secret",
saveUninitialized: false,
resave: true,
rolling: true,
cookie: {
expires: 20 * 1000
}
})
);
and it will renew the session automatically and it will only expire when it has been idle for the value in the expires variable

Answer 2

express-session supports a duration-based maxAge setting, which will work better than setting a fixed date for all sessions. So your middleware usage should instead look like:
app.use(session({
secret: 'secret',
saveUninitialized: true,
resave: true,
maxAge: 20000
}));
Next, to update the expiration of the session, you can just call req.session.touch(); if that is all you're doing to the session and its contents.
The documentation has a lot of other good information on controlling session expiration and related topics.