Add inactivity-based session timeout (closes #66)
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Sessions had only a 7-day absolute lifetime, and that cap was enforced
only by the cookie's MaxAge -- i.e. only by the browser. An abandoned
session stayed usable for the full week.

Sessions are now bounded by two independent, server-enforced clocks,
and end at whichever expires first:

- absolute: created_at + 7 days, stamped once by SetUser and never
  rewritten, so no amount of activity can extend it
- idle: last_seen + SESSION_IDLE_TIMEOUT (default 24h), pushed forward
  by the new Session.Touch

Both deadlines are checked in Session.expired, which IsAuthenticated
now consults, so every existing authentication decision honours them
without each call site having to remember.

Activity means a request that passes RequireAuth, which is the only
place Touch is called; an unauthenticated request carrying the cookie
cannot keep a session alive. Touch re-checks authentication itself so
that guarantee does not depend on the call site.

To avoid re-issuing the session cookie on every authenticated request,
Touch rewrites last_seen only once it is older than a tenth of the idle
window. The session therefore expires up to 10% early relative to the
user's true last request, never late.

An authenticated session carrying no timestamps (a cookie minted before
this change) is treated as expired, so the failure mode of the upgrade
is one forced re-login rather than an unbounded session.

Tests use an injected clock rather than sleeps and cover idle expiry,
refresh on activity, an actively used session still dying at the
absolute cap, refusal to refresh unauthenticated or expired sessions,
disabled idle expiry, and startup aborting on an unparseable
SESSION_IDLE_TIMEOUT.
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-09 05:59:54 +00:00
parent 4f5ecb18e5
commit b04bc2cc7b
9 changed files with 881 additions and 22 deletions

View File

@@ -186,6 +186,10 @@ func (s *Middleware) RequireAuth() func(http.Handler) http.Handler {
return
}
// IsAuthenticated also enforces both session expiry
// deadlines, so an idle-expired or absolutely-expired
// session lands here and is sent back to the login
// page.
if !s.session.IsAuthenticated(sess) {
s.log.Debug(
"auth middleware: unauthenticated request",
@@ -199,6 +203,26 @@ func (s *Middleware) RequireAuth() func(http.Handler) http.Handler {
return
}
// This request authenticated with the session, so it
// counts as activity: push the idle deadline forward.
// This is the only place sessions are refreshed, which
// is what keeps an unauthenticated request from
// extending someone else's session. Touch advances the
// idle clock only -- the absolute cap is untouched --
// and reports false when nothing changed, so most
// requests do not re-issue the cookie. Save before the
// handler runs, while the headers are still ours to
// write.
if s.session.Touch(sess) {
err = s.session.Save(r, w, sess)
if err != nil {
s.log.Error(
"auth middleware: failed to refresh session",
"error", err,
)
}
}
next.ServeHTTP(w, r)
})
}