Session Problem in Rails 2.2 "ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken in User#register"

Question

Hi everyone,

I am reading and learning from this very cool book Railspace - Building Social Networking sites.

I understand everything but i am stuck with the sessions section. Its something i would really like to get under my belt and would appreciate any help!

Ok so here is the error i get:

 ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken in User#register

    No :secret given to the #protect_from_forgery call.  Set that or use a session store capable of generating its own keys (Cookie Session Store).

    Extracted source (around line #2):

    1: <h2>Register</h2>
    2: <% form_for :user do |form| %>
    3:   
    4:   <fieldset>
    5:     <legend>Enter Your Details</legend>

d:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.2.2/lib/action_controller/request_forgery_protection.rb:115:in `form_authenticity_token'
(eval):2:in `send'
(eval):2:in `form_authenticity_token'
app/views/user/register.html.erb:2

My register.html.rb (or register.rhtml) file looks like this:

 # Your secret key for verifying cookie session data integrity.
  # If you change this key, all old sessions will become invalid!
  # Make sure the secret is at least 30 characters and all random, 
  # no regular words or you'll be exposed to dictionary attacks.
  config.action_controller.session = {
    :session_key => '_rails_space_session',
    :secret      => '85b34bcc08e24fe0988c46e70c5f38e6a1b689be0a919e75ad433048e638678bae3df444bf2065327be5ebd30c099610e179e8461a5318509df584883d456ff3'
  }

  # Use the database for sessions instead of the cookie-based default,
  # which shouldn't be used to store highly confidential information
  # (create the session table with "rake db:sessions:create")
  config.action_controller.session_store = :active_record_store

I've run the command:

rake db:sessions:create

^The above command simple generates an Active Record class CreateSessions (simple enough right?)

What do i need to do here to get away from this nasty little error? How do i disable the secret question (I have tried but no luck yet) ;-)

Answer 1

UPDATE => [SOLVED] What was happening was that when i ran the rake

db:create:sessions command it was adding a string into the sessions table of my database. I deleted that and then restarted Mongrel and voila!

What i am still a little confused about though is when i deleted the CreateSessions < ActiveRecord::Migration file and reran the rake db:create:sessions it didn't add a session string into the sessions table.

I still have to figure that one out....