Sitecore Identity Server: Increasing the Token Lifetime for Local Development

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In this article, we will review how to change the authentication token timeout values that force us to log back in to Sitecore or request a new token from Postman. If you are like me, generally working with Sitecore/Sitecore Commerce 10+ hours per day, 6 days a week, it can seem like you are kicked out every 5 minutes. Personally, I set these timeouts to a week (604800 seconds).

Changing the timeouts are not recommended for production instances.

Changing the Timeouts in Sitecore Identity Server

Sitecore Identity Server was first introduced with Sitecore Commerce 9.0.0 and with the release of Sitecore 9.1, Sitecore Identity Server was added to Sitecore authentication process.

Updating the Token Lifetimes in 9.0.X

  1. Open <Sitecore Identity Server root>\wwwroot\appsettings.json.
  2. Under AppSettings.Clients, update the CommerceBusinessTools and Postman API clients for BizFx and Postman applications respectively :-
    1. Update the AccessTokenLifetimeInSeconds and IdentityTokenLifetimeInSeconds from the default 3600 (seconds) to the desired timespan, in seconds.
    2. Save the configuration.
  3. Restart the Sitecore Identity Server so that the updated configuration is consumed on startup.

Updating the Token Lifetimes in 9.3

  1. Open <Sitecore Identity Server root>\Config\production\Sitecore.Commerce.IdentityServer.Host.xml.
  2. Under /Settings/Sitecore/IdentityServer/Clients, update the CommerceClient and PostmanClient for BizFx and Postman applications respectively:-
    1. Update the AccessTokenLifetimeInSeconds and IdentityTokenLifetimeInSeconds from the default 3600 (seconds) to the desired timespan, in seconds.
    2. Save the configuration.
  3. Restart the Sitecore Identity Server so that the updated configuration is consumed on startup.