What is a Sticky Session?

A sticky session, also called session affinity, is a proxy configuration that maintains the same IP address for a defined period or until explicitly released. This allows multiple sequential requests to originate from the same IP, preserving session state on the target website.

How Session Binding Works at the Gateway

When a sticky session is established, the proxy gateway locks a specific IP from the pool to your connection for a configurable duration, typically ranging from 1 to 30 minutes. All requests during this window route through the same IP. The session can be identified by a session ID, port number, or cookie. When the sticky period expires or the session is released, a new IP is assigned for the next session. This mechanism balances the benefits of rotation with the need for IP consistency.

On Hex Proxies, you append a session ID to your credentials when connecting to gate.hexproxies.com:8080. All requests sharing that session ID exit through the same IP until the TTL expires, then the gateway seamlessly assigns a fresh IP.

When Session Continuity Is Non-Negotiable

Many web tasks require multiple requests from the same IP to complete: multi-page checkout flows, form submissions, paginated data collection, and authenticated browsing. Without sticky sessions, each request coming from a different IP would break session continuity and trigger security alerts. Hex Proxies provides configurable sticky sessions across residential and datacenter pools.