This is more of a conceptual question. But I was wondering when a web session starts and ends when using PHP. I'm pretty sure the session starts when the user first requests any page that has the session_start() function. But does the session end when the user navigates to another page in the same tab? Is the same session preserved across multiple tabs and windows of the same browser? To preserve a session after the browser closes, do you have to use cookies?
session_start()
session.gc_maxlifetime
and/or session.cookie_lifetime
and/or some more things to do with PHP's session garbage collector.