Advanced Jakarta Servlets: Cookies and Session Management

Cookies and session management are essential for servlet apps to maintain state across multiple HTTP requests, as HTTP requests are inherently stateless. In this course, learn how cookies enable stateful web applications by storing session data on the client side and help maintain user identity and preferences across multiple requests. Familiarize yourself with the core properties of HTTP cookies such as name, value, path, and expiration and study key security aspects like the HTTPOnly and Secure flags to protect against common web vulnerabilities. Discover how to manage user sessions and explore different session tracking techniques, including cookies, URL rewriting, and hidden form fields. Learn about the behavior and lifecycle of session cookies within a browser environment. Finally, explore the session management system that includes login, logout, and automatic timeout functionality and learn how to implement URL rewriting as a fallback mechanism, ensuring session tracking remains functional in that scenario.