Bug #42390 2 Monitor servers on same hostname causes session problems with Firefox
Submitted: 27 Jan 2009 19:13 Modified: 21 Aug 2009 9:29
Reporter: Lig Isler-Turmelle Email Updates:
Status: Closed Impact on me:
None 
Category:MySQL Enterprise Monitor: Configuration Severity:S3 (Non-critical)
Version:2.0.0.7111 OS:Any
Assigned to: MC Brown CPU Architecture:Any

[27 Jan 2009 19:13] Lig Isler-Turmelle
Description:
If you login to 2 merlin servers with firefox and both servers are accessed by the same "hostname" but with different ports, then firefox gets confused between the 2 sessions and they interfere with each other. The end result is that I get logged out. This is quite frustrating. no error messages are shown.

Seems to be a problem with the session cookies since they are scoped by the hostname.

done in Firefox 3.0.5

How to repeat:
1) install 2 desktops on the same machine but using different ports for access
2) Open http://localhost:18081/merlin and http://localhost:18082/merlin/ (the 2 separate instances) in 2 different tabs in Firefox
3) wait for you to be kicked out.

Suggested fix:
don't have 2 open at the same time or try another browser.
[27 Jan 2009 19:36] Simon Mudd
"Suggested fix" is actually a "workaround".

The other one is to use a different browser. Safari does not seem to be affected (used on a Mac). I've no idea of the behaviour of other browswers.

As the original reporter of the ticket this option is not very practical as I need to monitor different merlin servers at once and due to network connectivity issues currently have to do that using the same hostname.

At least document this issue as it will crop up again for some people.
[24 Jun 2009 18:55] Mark Leith
Some notes on this bug:

o Currently it is likely to require significant work to rectify this - many elements of the UI rely on cookies
o We currently feel that for the amount of work, and other priorities for features and bugs, the effort to fix this means that it is very low on our priorities

Therefore, we will have this documented in the manual, and return this bug to "To be fixed later" afterwards. 

If this does become an issue for you in the future, please comment on this bug to let us know.
[21 Aug 2009 9:29] MC Brown
I've added a note on this limitation to the reference appendix.