asp.net mvc keep alive page with a flash on it / ping controller

Question

I have page in my asp.net mvc website with a flash app on it, and the user can stay on that page for hours, but his auth cookie/session is going to expire, so I'm thinking to create a PingController and to call it using jquery $.post each 20 minutes.

is this a good idea ?
or there is something better ?

Answer 1

Why you don't increase auth cookie timeout? Like so (if you are using forms authentication):

<authentication mode="Forms">
  <forms loginUrl="~/Login" timeout="600" name="Something"/>
</authentication>

Cheers!

Answer 2

You can actually do this using jquery and setInterval. In the setInterval, you can give a callback and the interval time. In the callback, you can post to the server to keep it alive. For more information, see the blog for asp.net MVC at http://www.dotnetcurry.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=453&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1