PHP: Managing Persistent Sessions

PHP persistent sessions allow for communication between the server and client. This allows web applications to remember the identities of visitors as well as any variables or other data. This practical and challenging project-based course will help developers take the data that PHP normally stores in plain text files and write them into a more secure database, where the records can be read and destroyed as needed. Author David Powers helps you set up a SQL database, define classes to open and close sessions, read and write variables, destroy sessions, and manage out-of-date records. The lessons culminate in a short project that uses tokens to recognize returning users in an auto-login scenario.

Learning objectives
Configuring sessions
Inspecting how session data is stored
Implementing persistent sessions
Creating a SQL database to store session data
Implementing the PHP SessionHandlerInterface
Writing session data
Closing and destroying sessions
Creating an auto-login system with persistent sessions
Creating persistent logins
Checking out visitor credentials
Authenticating users
Logging out users selectively