Apache Tomcat 9 Configuration Reference (9.0.37) - The SessionIdGenerator Component

## The SessionIdGenerator Component

### Table of Contents

- Introduction
- Attributes
  1. Common Attributes
  2. Standard Implementation

### Introduction

The SessionIdGenerator element represents the session id generator that will be used to create session ids used by web application HTTP sessions.

A SessionIdGenerator element MAY be nested inside a Manager component. If it is not included, a default SessionIdGenerator configuration will be created automatically, which is sufficient for most requirements, — see Standard SessionIdGenerator Implementation below for the details of this configuration.

### Attributes

#### Common Attributes

All implementations of SessionIdGenerator support the following attributes:

Attribute | Description
--- | ---
`className` | Java class name of the implementation to use. This class must implement the `org.apache.catalina.SessionIdGenerator` interface. If not specified, the standard value (defined below) will be used.
`jvmRoute` | A routing identifier for this Tomcat instance. It will be added to the session id to allow for stateless stickyness routing by load balancers. The details on how the `jvmRoute` will be included in the id are implementation dependent. See Standard Implementation for the default behavior. NOTE - The value for this property is inherited automatically from the `jvmRoute` attribute of the Engine element.
`sessionIdLength` | The length of session ids created by this SessionIdGenerator. The details on how the `sessionIdLength` influences the session id length are implementation dependent. See Standard Implementation for the default behavior.

#### Standard Implementation

Tomcat provides a standard implementations of SessionIdGenerator for use.

### Standard SessionIdGenerator Implementation

The standard implementation of SessionIdGenerator is org.apache.catalina.util.StandardSessionIdGenerator. It supports the following attributes:

Attribute | Description
--- | ---
`jvmRoute` | A routing identifier for this Tomcat instance. It will be added to the end of the session id separated by a ".".
`sessionIdLength` | The length of session ids created by this SessionIdGenerator. More precisely the session id length is twice the value of `sessionIdLength` plus the length of the trailing `jvmRoute` if given. The factor 2 is because the session id is constructed using `sessionIdLength` random bytes, each byte being encoded in two hex characters in the actual id. The default value is 16.