what's differences between "forms timeout", "membership userIsOnlineTimeWindow" and "sessionState timeout"

Question

What is the difference between these lines of code:

<forms timeout="5" />

<membership userIsOnlineTimeWindow="5" />

<sessionState timeout="5" />

Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

Forms (FormsAuthention) are used for authentication and when it times out it will logout user. You can 'prevent' timeout by setting SlidingExpiration property to 'true' and it will renew forms ticket on user activity (read request to asp) if needed. This will keep user logged on while he is 'active' on your site.

Membership is used for user validation and userIsOnlineTimeWindow is there to help you track user activity so when it runs out it will set IsOnline property to 'false' for that user. One new thing I found out is that it will also renew forms ticket while users isOnline is set, main difference is that it doesn't renew itself automatically but only when its GetUser() or ValidateUser() methods are run.

When session times out you will lose data found in Session object. That is all.