My Rails-app has a sign in box with a "remember me" checkbox. Users who check that box should remain logged in even after closing their browser. I'm keeping track of whether users are logged in by storing their id in the user's session.

But sessions are implemented in Rails as session cookies, which are not persistent. I can make them persistent:

    class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

      before_filter :update_session_expiration_date

      private

      def update_session_expiration_date

        options = ActionController::Base.session_options

        unless options[:session_expires]

          options[:session_expires] = 1.year.from_now

        end

      end

    end

But that seems like a hack, which is surprising for such common functionality. Is there a better way?