Thanks again Marvin.  This is starting to make sense.  I tuned session-timeout 
back to 5 minutes and redployed the server.  However the problem is still 
happening, and as you said, I am beginning to suspect something wrong with the 
servlet container.

So in IE, I went to the login page, deleted all the cookies, logged in and 
checked my JSESSIONID.  It was a long string starting 2C42BD...

I then (still inside my app) deleted all the browser cookies and then hit F5 
(refresh).  I am still logged in, and the JSESSIONID is still the same exact 
string.

What does this mean to you?  If it is a container issue, where might I start 
digging in? Thanks again for all the help thus far!

-----Original Message-----
From: Marvin Addison [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2014 10:42 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [cas-user] Need to clear browser cookies in order to login

> If a JSESSIONID cookie exists in the browser, but is somehow invalid or 
> expired, could it cause this type of behavior that I'm seeing?

Yes. As I said the behavior is by design. An expired session corresponds to an 
invalid flow. As I noted, however, simply reposting credentials usually allows 
login to proceed. That's because the servlet container typically creates a new, 
valid session with a distinct JSESSIONID for the new flow. If you don't see 
JSESSIONID values changing when you're hitting your problem, that's a sign of 
servlet container misbehavior.

> JSESSIONID is the only cookie that exists when the user first goes to 
> the login page

That cookie conveys the session identifier; it MUST exist prior to 
authentication since it backs the Spring Webflow state.

> So this is the only CAS-related cookie that, when deleted, could be fixing 
> this weird issue for my users.

Makes sense. CAS is configured to create a session if one does not already 
exist. Deleting the JSESSIONID cookie is equivalent to the "does not have 
session" condition.

> My theory: if the user goes to the login page and somehow has a bad 
> JSESSIONID cookie, then somehow this affects the login HTTP POST and causes 
> the user to be unable to login.

Correct. Not much help though. It simply begs the question, why is the session 
invalid? I imagine you may be running into some boundary condition with such a 
large session timeout. I would hope backing off resolves it.

Again, why do you need a session timeout longer than default? At one time the 
CAS session was configured for 5 minutes with the thinking a session is only 
needed for the brief time of showing the login form and processing the 
submitted credentials which under most circumstances happens in a matter of 
seconds. Why do you need more?

M

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