[Zope] Preserving Settings during a user's session

[Jeff Bauer]

"Christopher G. Petrilli" wrote:
> > How about from a single long-running process on a well
> > known URL?  Sessions could then be scaled beyond a
> > single server.
> 
> This was my point with the concept of a SessionServer, which would be
> something seperate from Zope's main database.  It would reside on a
> central server, and allow for multiple servers to resolve IDs into
> "Session" objects.  These objects could even maintain state for some
> period of time after their last access (i.e. someone could be shopping,
> leave and come back in some manner)... you could also retreive them
> based on some other information, perhaps... a userid, or something.

I was thinking more initially about just a ticket dispenser, than
a session manager.  It's purpose would be to assure a unique id
is passed to each requestor, possibly storing some information
passed to it during the request phase.

Session management would be a separate process.

> Honestly, though, I'm not sure HTTP is the best protocol for this, but
> what do I know... I'd use XML-RPC over HTTP if I did that, otherwise I'd
> use something else like CORBA.

The main problem is getting all this stuff to work through proxies,
I'm sure you're aware.  I actually did manage to get Iona's Orbix
to work through a firewall (thanks to hecurlean efforts on the 
part of Justin Mason @ Iona and a security guru at Sprint), but it's
just not worth the effort.  Nor does the current xml-rpc work through
a proxy, at present (although it shouldn't be difficult to fix).  
HTTP/SSL pretty much works everywhere.

Best regards,

Jeff Bauer
Rubicon, Inc.