{"id":4027,"date":"2017-09-20T08:45:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T15:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/?p=4027"},"modified":"2025-06-13T19:40:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T02:40:26","slug":"distributed-session-aspnet-couchbase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/distributed-session-aspnet-couchbase\/","title":{"rendered":"Distributed session management in ASP.NET Core with Couchbase"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Distributed session is a way for you to store your session state outside of your ASP.NET Core application. Using Couchbase to store session state can help you when you need to scale your web site, especially if you don\u2019t want to use sticky sessions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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You can follow along with the code samples I\u2019ve created, available on GitHub<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Note that Couchbase.Extensions.Session is a beta release at the time of this writing.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What is session state?<\/h2>\n
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Session state is simply a way to store data for a particular user. Typically, a token is stored in a user cookie, and that token acts as a key to some set of data on the server side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How to enable session in ASP.NET<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re familiar with ASP.NET or ASP Classic, this is done using Session<\/code>. All the cookie work is done behind the scenes, so you simply use Session<\/code> as a dictionary to store and retrieve whatever data you want.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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if(Session[\"IsLoggedIn\"] = false)\r\n    Session[\"Username\"] = \"matt\";<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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By default, in ASP.NET and ASP Classic, this information is stored in memory, as part of the web application process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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In ASP.NET Core, you can also opt-in to this by configuring session with AddSession<\/code>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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First, in Startup.cs, in the Configure<\/code> function, tell ASP.NET Core to use session:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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app.UseSession();<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Then, in the ConfigureServices<\/code> function, use AddSession<\/code> to add a session provider service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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services.AddDistributedMemoryCache();\r\nservices.AddSession();<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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(This will use the default session settings, see the ASP.NET Core documentation<\/a> for more information).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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 What is session management in ASP.NET Core? <\/h2>\n
 Session management in ASP.NET Core is a way to store and manage user-specific data across multiple requests within a web application. It uses a session token, typically stored in a cookie, to associate the user with their data on the server. Sessions can be stored in memory, distributed systems, or databases, enabling scalable and efficient handling of user state in applications. <\/p>\n
A distributed session is a way for you to store your session state outside of your ASP.NET Core application. Using Couchbase to store session state can help you when you need to scale your web site, especially if you don\u2019t want to use sticky sessions. <\/p><\/div>\n
Why distributed session management?<\/h2>\n
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However, if you are scaling out your web application with multiple web servers, you\u2019ll have to make some decisions about session. If you continue to use in-process session, then you must configure sticky sessions (the first web server that a user hits is the one they will “stick” with for subsequent requests). This has some potential downsides (see this thread on ServerFault<\/a> and this article on Microsoft\u2019s TechNet magazine<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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If you don\u2019t want to use sticky sessions, then you can\u2019t use the in-process session option. You\u2019ll instead need to use a distributed session. There are a lot of options for where to put session data, but Couchbase\u2019s memory-first architecture and flexible scaling capabilities make it a good choice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Using distributed session in ASP.NET Core<\/h2>\n
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Before you start writing code, you\u2019ll need a Couchbase Server cluster running with a bucket (I named mine “sessionstore”). You\u2019ll also need to create a user with Data Reader and Data Writer permission on the bucket (I also called my user “sessionstore” just to keep things simple).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Adding Couchbase.Extensions.Session<\/h3>\n
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Now, open up your ASP.NET Core application in Visual Studio. (I created a new ASP.NET Core MVC app, which you can find on GitHub<\/a>). Next, with NuGet, install the Couchbase.Extensions.Session library:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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