Sessions need to work with all web browsers and take into account the users security preferences. Therefore there are a variety of ways to send and receive the identifier:
URL rewriting: URL rewriting is a method of session tracking in which some extra data (session ID) is appended at the end of each URL. This extra data identifies the session. The server can associate this session identifier with the data it has stored about that session. This method is used with browsers that do not support cookies or where the user has disabled the cookies.
- Hidden Form Fields: Similar to URL rewriting. The server embeds new hidden fields in every dynamically generated form page for the client. When the client submits the form to the server the hidden fields identify the client.
- Cookies: Cookie is a small amount of information sent by a servlet to a Web browser. Saved by the browser, and later sent back to the server in subsequent requests. A cookie has a name, a single value, and optional attributes. A cookie's value can uniquely identify a client.
- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Sessions : Web browsers that support Secure Socket Layer communication can use SSL's support via HTTPS for generating a unique session key as part of the encrypted conversation.
