Ruts: Rust Tower Session for HTTP Applications

Installation

Add the following to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
ruts = "0.5.9"

Quick Start

Here's a basic example with Axum:

use axum::{Router, routing::get};
use ruts::{Session, SessionLayer, CookieOptions};
use ruts::store::redis::RedisStore;
use fred::clients::Client;
use std::sync::Arc;
use fred::interfaces::ClientLike;
use tower_cookies::CookieManagerLayer;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    // Set up Redis client
    let client = Client::default();
    client.connect();
    client.wait_for_connect().await.unwrap();

    // Create session store
    let store = RedisStore::new(Arc::new(client));

    // Configure session-cookie options
    let cookie_options = CookieOptions::build()
        .name("session")
        .http_only(true)
        .same_site(cookie::SameSite::Lax)
        .secure(true)
        .max_age(3600) // 1 hour
        .path("/");

    // Create session layer
    let session_layer = SessionLayer::new(Arc::new(store))
        .with_cookie_options(cookie_options);

    // Set up router with session management
    let app = Router::new()
        .route("/", get(handler))
        .layer(session_layer)
        .layer(CookieManagerLayer::new()); // CookieManagerLayer must be after

    // Run the server
    let listener = tokio::net::TcpListener::bind("0.0.0.0:3000").await.unwrap();
    axum::serve(listener, app).await.unwrap();
}

async fn handler(session: Session<RedisStore<Client>>) -> String {
    let count: Option<i32> = session.get("count").await.unwrap();
    let new_count = count.unwrap_or(0) + 1;
    session.insert("count", &new_count).await.unwrap();
    format!("You've visited this page {} times", new_count)
}

Session Management

Basic Operations

// Get session data
let value: ValueType = session.get("key").await?;

// Insert new data
session.insert("key", &value, optional_field_expiration).await?;

// Prepare a new session ID for the next insert
let new_id = session.prepare_regenerate();
session.insert("key", &value, optional_field_expiration).await?;

// Update existing data
session.update("key", &new_value, optional_field_expiration).await?;

// Prepare a new session ID for the next update
let new_id = session.prepare_regenerate();
session.update("key", &value, optional_field_expiration).await?;

// Remove data
session.remove("key").await?;

// Delete entire session
session.delete().await?;

// Regenerate session ID (for security)
session.regenerate().await?;

// Update session expiry
session.expire(seconds)

// Get session ID
session.id()

Redis Store (Default session store)

A Redis-backed session store implementation.

Requirements

• Redis 7.4 or later (required for field-level expiration using HEXPIRE)
• For Redis < 7.4, field-level expiration will not be available

use ruts::store::redis::RedisStore;

let store = RedisStore::new(Arc::new(fred_client_or_pool));

Serialization

Ruts supports two serialization backends for session data storage:

bincode (default) - Fast binary serialization messagepack - Cross-language compatible serialization

To use MessagePack instead of the default bincode, add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
ruts = { version = "0.5.9", default-features = false, features = ["axum", "redis-store", "messagepack"] }

Cookie Configuration

let cookie_options = CookieOptions::build()
    .name("cookie_name")
    .http_only(true)
    .same_site(cookie::SameSite::Strict)
    .secure(true)
    .max_age(7200) // 2 hours
    .path("/")
    .domain("example.com");

Important Notes

Middleware Ordering

The SessionLayer must be applied before the CookieManagerLayer:

app.layer(session_layer)              // First: SessionLayer
   .layer(CookieManagerLayer::new()); // Then CookieManagerLayer

Security Best Practices

• Enable HTTPS in production (set secure: true in cookie options)
• Use appropriate SameSite cookie settings
• Add session expiration
• Regularly regenerate session IDs
• Enable HTTP Only mode in production (set http_only: true)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.