System Template

session.writeByPublicKey() - Available since version 1.3.6

Write data to sessions identified by a public key

See Also

Syntax

number = rb.page.session.writeByPublicKey(publicKey, dataSectionName, data)

Parameters

The 'session.writeByPublicKey' method takes 3 parameters:

Results

The 'session.writeByPublicKey' method returns number:

Remarks

rb.page.session.setPublicKey() assigns a 64 bit 'public key' to the current session - that is the session of the current HTTP request.

The public key effectively advertises the presence of that session to other sessions and allows a mechanism by which other sessions can write data into the session storage of this session.

The documentation for rb.page.session.write describes how the storage for each session is partitioned into separate named spaces, or sections. Each of these are individually addressable by the owning session (and only the owning session).

This method (writeByPublicKey) allows an application to write data remotely into other active sessions, identified by the public keys assigned to those sessions. Allowing free access to the session data is a security risk - this would allow a rogue application to potentially write into sensitive data areas of the stored session data. For this reason Whitebeam reserves all name spaces starting with '$' as being accessible between sessions.

rb.page.session.writeByPublicKey allows an application to write to any named section starting with a '$' in all sessions that share the specified public key. An error is thrown if you attempt to write to a section name that does *not* start with a '$'.

It is possible for foreign sessions to read the 'public' $ named sections of session data via a context server request (rb.context.getContexts) and so applications must take care about the data they store in these name spaces.