How do you set up use HttpOnly cookies in PHP
PhpSecurityCookiesXssHttponlyPhp Problem Overview
How can I set the cookies in my PHP apps as HttpOnly cookies?
Php Solutions
Solution 1 - Php
For PHP's own session cookies on Apache:
add this to your Apache configuration or .htaccess
<IfModule php5_module>
php_flag session.cookie_httponly on
</IfModule>
This can also be set within a script, as long as it is called before session_start().
ini_set( 'session.cookie_httponly', 1 );
Solution 2 - Php
- For your cookies, see this answer.
- For PHP's own session cookie (
PHPSESSID, by default), see @richie's answer
The setcookie() and setrawcookie() functions, introduced the boolean httponly parameter, back in the dark ages of PHP 5.2.0, making this nice and easy. Simply set the 7th parameter to true, as per the syntax
Function syntax simplified for brevity
setcookie( $name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, $secure, $httponly )
setrawcookie( $name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, $secure, $httponly )
In PHP < 8, specify NULL for parameters you wish to remain as default.
In PHP >= 8 you can benefit from using named parameters. See this question about named params.
setcookie( $name, $value, httponly:true )
It is also possible using the older, lower-level header() function:
header( "Set-Cookie: name=value; HttpOnly" );
You may also want to consider if you should be setting the Secure parameter.
Solution 3 - Php
Note that PHP session cookies don't use httponly by default.
To do that:
$sess_name = session_name();
if (session_start()) {
setcookie($sess_name, session_id(), null, '/', null, null, true);
}
A couple of items of note here:
- You have to call
session_name()beforesession_start() - This also sets the default path to '/', which is necessary for Opera but which PHP session cookies don't do by default either.
Solution 4 - Php
Be aware that HttpOnly doesn't stop cross-site scripting; instead, it neutralizes one possible attack, and currently does that only on IE (FireFox exposes HttpOnly cookies in XmlHttpRequest, and Safari doesn't honor it at all). By all means, turn HttpOnly on, but don't drop even an hour of output filtering and fuzz testing in trade for it.
Solution 5 - Php
<?php
//None HttpOnly cookie:
setcookie("abc", "test", NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, FALSE);
//HttpOnly cookie:
setcookie("abc", "test", NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, TRUE);
?>
Solution 6 - Php
You can specify it in the set cookie function see the php manual
setcookie('Foo','Bar',0,'/', 'www.sample.com' , FALSE, TRUE);
Solution 7 - Php
Explanation here from Ilia... 5.2 only though
httpOnly cookie flag support in PHP 5.2
As stated in that article, you can set the header yourself in previous versions of PHP
header("Set-Cookie: hidden=value; httpOnly");
Solution 8 - Php
You can use this in a header file.
// setup session enviroment
ini_set('session.cookie_httponly',1);
ini_set('session.use_only_cookies',1);
This way all future session cookies will use httponly.
- Updated.
Solution 9 - Php
The right syntax of the php_flag command is
php_flag session.cookie_httponly On
And be aware, just first answer from server set the cookie and here (for example You can see the "HttpOnly" directive. So for testing delete cookies from browser after every testing request.
Solution 10 - Php
A more elegant solution since PHP >=7.0
session_start(['cookie_lifetime' => 43200,'cookie_secure' => true,'cookie_httponly' => true]);
Solution 11 - Php
Solution session_start(['cookie_lifetime' => 43200,'cookie_secure' => true,'cookie_httponly' => true]);
Thanks Hein.