Spring Boot HTTP Sessions with Embedded Infinispan

What You Will Learn

How to store Spring Boot HTTP sessions in an embedded Infinispan cache using @EnableInfinispanEmbeddedHttpSession, with distributed clustering for session replication across nodes.

Prerequisites

Java 17+
Spring Boot

Step 1: Add Dependencies

Add the Infinispan Spring Boot embedded starter, Spring Web, and Spring Session:

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.infinispan</groupId>
   <artifactId>infinispan-spring-boot4-starter-embedded</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
   <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
   <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
   <groupId>org.springframework.session</groupId>
   <artifactId>spring-session-core</artifactId>
</dependency>

Step 2: Enable Embedded HTTP Sessions with Clustering

Annotate your application with @EnableInfinispanEmbeddedHttpSession and configure a clustered cache for sessions:

@EnableInfinispanEmbeddedHttpSession
@SpringBootApplication
public class UserSessionsApp {

    @Bean
    public InfinispanGlobalConfigurer globalCustomizer() {
        return () -> GlobalConfigurationBuilder
              .defaultClusteredBuilder()
              .metrics().gauges(false).histograms(false)
              .globalState().disable()
              .build();
    }

    @Bean
    public InfinispanCacheConfigurer cacheConfigurer() {
        return manager -> {
            final Configuration ispnConfig = new ConfigurationBuilder()
                    .clustering()
                    .cacheMode(CacheMode.DIST_SYNC)
                    .statistics().disable()
                    .build();


            manager.defineConfiguration("sessions", ispnConfig);
        };
    }

    public static void main(String... args) {
        new SpringApplicationBuilder().sources(UserSessionsApp.class).run(args);
    }
}

Step 3: Use Sessions in a REST Controller

Store and retrieve session data through a REST controller:

@RestController
public class UserSessionsController {

    public static final String LATEST_SESSION_VALUE = "latest";

    @Autowired
    private SpringEmbeddedCacheManager cacheManager;

    @GetMapping("/")
    public String greeting(@RequestParam(name = "name", required = false, defaultValue = "World") String name,
                           HttpSession session) {
        String latest = (String) session.getAttribute(LATEST_SESSION_VALUE);
        session.setAttribute("latest", name);
        if(latest == null) {
            return "Nobody to ciao";
        }
        return "ciao " + latest;
    }

    @GetMapping("/sessions")
    public Set<?> sessions() {
        return cacheManager.getCache("sessions").getNativeCache().keySet();
    }

Step 4: Run the Tutorial

mvn spring-boot:run

Visit http://localhost:8080/?name=Katia. Refresh to see the previous name from the session. Start multiple instances on different ports to see distributed session replication.

What’s Next

Spring Boot remote sessions for externalized session storage in an Infinispan Server
Spring Boot embedded caching for data caching with embedded Infinispan