Spring Boot HTTP Sessions with Remote Infinispan

What You Will Learn

How to store Spring Boot HTTP sessions in a remote Infinispan Server using @EnableInfinispanRemoteHttpSession, enabling session sharing across application instances.

Prerequisites

Java 17+
Spring Boot
An Infinispan Server running on localhost:11222

Step 1: Add Dependencies

Add the Infinispan Spring Boot remote starter, Spring Web, Thymeleaf, and Spring Session:

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

Step 2: Enable Remote HTTP Sessions

Annotate your main application class with @EnableInfinispanRemoteHttpSession:

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableInfinispanRemoteHttpSession
public class UserSessionsApp {

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

Step 3: Configure the Sessions Cache

Use an InfinispanRemoteCacheCustomizer to configure the "sessions" cache with Protobuf marshalling:

@Configuration
public class InfinispanConfiguration {

   @Bean
   @Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE)
   public InfinispanRemoteCacheCustomizer caches() {
      return b -> {
         // Ask the server to create this cache on startup
         URI uri;
         try {
           uri = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("sessionsCacheConfig.xml").toURI();
         } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
         }

         b.remoteCache("sessions").configurationURI(uri);
         // Use protostream marshaller to serialize the sessions with Protobuf
         b.remoteCache("sessions").marshaller(ProtoStreamMarshaller.class);
      };
   }
}

Step 4: Use Session Attributes in a Controller

Store and retrieve data from the HTTP session as usual:

@Controller
@SessionAttributes("greetings")
public class WebController {

    @GetMapping("/greeting")
    public String greeting(@RequestParam(name = "name", required = false, defaultValue = "World") String name,
                           Model model, HttpSession session) {
        model.addAttribute("name", name);
        model.addAttribute("latest", session.getAttribute("latest"));
        session.setAttribute("latest", name);
        return "greeting";
    }

}

Step 5: Run the Tutorial

mvn spring-boot:run

Visit http://localhost:8080/greeting?name=Katia. Refresh the page to see the previous name persisted in the session. Sessions are stored in the remote Infinispan Server, so they survive application restarts.

What’s Next

Spring Boot embedded sessions for session storage without a server
Spring Boot remote caching for data caching with a remote server