Tutorial: Sharing Sessions Between Two Laravel Applications Using a Common Database

In this tutorial, we will configure two separate Laravel applications to share the same session storage, allowing users to maintain their session state across both applications. This is useful when building applications that need to share authentication or session data between different systems.

Steps to Configure Shared Sessions:

1. Create a Database Connection for Sessions

To allow both Laravel applications to use the same session storage, we need to configure them to use a common database for session storage.

• Open the config/database.php file in both Laravel applications.
• Add a new database connection specifically for session storage. You can either use an existing database connection or create a new one. Here's an example of adding a new connection:

'connections' => [
    // Other database connections

    'session' => [
        'driver' => 'mysql',  // Use your preferred database driver
        'host' => env('SESSION_DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
        'port' => env('SESSION_DB_PORT', '3306'),
        'database' => env('SESSION_DB_DATABASE', 'sessions'),
        'username' => env('SESSION_DB_USERNAME', 'root'),
        'password' => env('SESSION_DB_PASSWORD', ''),
    ],
],

Ensure that the database connection details (host, port, database, username, and password) are correct for both applications. You can also define these values in the .env file for better flexibility.

2. Set Configuration Variables in .env

In the .env files of both applications, configure the session driver and database connection.

Add or update the following variables in the .env files for both applications:

SESSION_DRIVER=database
SESSION_CONNECTION=session

These settings instruct Laravel to use the database session driver and the specific connection we configured in the previous step.

3. Migrate the Sessions Table

Next, we need to create the sessions table in the shared database. Run the following commands in each Laravel application to generate and apply the session migration:

php artisan session:table
php artisan migrate

This will create a sessions table in the database specified in the SESSION_CONNECTION (the common session connection).

4. Configure Session Cookies for Multiple Applications

To ensure that session cookies are properly shared between the two applications, they need to be hosted on the same domain or subdomains. If they are hosted on different subdomains, you can configure the SESSION_DOMAIN variable in each application's .env file:

For example, if your apps are hosted on app1.example.com and app2.example.com, you can set the following in both .env files:

SESSION_DOMAIN=.example.com

This ensures that session cookies are shared between both subdomains.

5. Test the Shared Session Setup

Once the setup is complete, you can test if sessions are shared by logging into one application and checking if the session persists when navigating to the second application.

Conclusion:

By following this tutorial, you've configured two Laravel applications to use the same session storage. Users can seamlessly switch between the two applications without losing their session data. This setup is particularly useful when building multi-platform applications or services that require shared user states.

With a shared session table, the applications become more integrated, enhancing the user experience across both platforms.