Conditionally updating cookie expiry time in nginx to find the idle time

niyasc

4/9/23, 12:08 PM

I'm trying to implement a solution to identify if there was an idle time of X minutes between two requests.

For this, I'm planning to use the following approach.

Initially, set a cookie from the application side. The expiry time of this cookie is set to X minutes.
Whenever there is a request, in nginx, I will check if the cookie expiry time is passed or the cookie is available.
If the cookie is available, and not expired, I will update the expiry time again with X minutes. Otherwise, delete the cookie.
On the server-side, I can check the availability of the cookie and if available, I can conclude the previous request was within X minutes.

To implement this solution, I will need some code snippets as below.

if cookie-exists and cookie.expirytime > currentTime
  Set-Cookie: MY_COOKIE=SOMEVAL; Max-Age=X*60; Secure; HttpOnly
else
  Drop-Cookie MY_COOKIE
endif

How can I implement this condition check and cookie modification in nginx? Is it possible to do without lua?

I don't want to implement this logic on the application side because - there are multiple applications served through nginx and I want to keep the logic common to all. If the user is hitting any of the applications, the cookie should be updated.

0 + 0

nginx

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Conditionally updating cookie expiry time in nginx to find the idle time

TH: การอัปเดตเวลาหมดอายุของคุกกี้แบบมีเงื่อนไขใน nginx เพื่อค้นหาเวลาว่าง

RO: Actualizarea condiționată a timpului de expirare a cookie-urilor în nginx pentru a găsi timpul de inactivitate

RU: Условное обновление срока действия файла cookie в nginx для определения времени простоя

VI: Cập nhật có điều kiện thời gian hết hạn cookie trong nginx để tìm thời gian nhàn rỗi

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