Session control with multiple web servers in IE

Question

to understand my problem do the following:
make a page with this code:
<%
out.println("sessionID = "+session.getId());
%>
Run two (2) instance of web servers (can be a tomcat) in different ports...
open IE and access the URL: http://localhost:8080/test/mytest.jsp
see id number...
access http://localhost:8081/test/mytest.jsp
see id number...
now access http://localhost:8080/test/mytest.jsp again
and will see that IE lost the session and has a different session id.
if you make this test in Nestcape it will keep the same session id when you access the 8080 server again, and is what i want :)
anybody knows a solution to this?
in the real world, my application has a frame with a menu that runs in 8080 server port and the application that are called by this menu will run in different ports in another frame. the problems is that when a call a application in another port, with IE i lost the session from the menu that runs on port 8080. With Netscape work perfect!
somebody can help?

Answer 1

this seems to have to do with the handling of sessoin cookies. IE creates one cookie for every browser instance whereas Netscape creates one session cookie for all browser instanced. Linke this Netscape shares a session cookie with the whole application wheres as IE does not.
Just to make it clear: none of the both handling methodes are right or wrong. In my opinionen from the point of security, the IE solution is better.
The only workaround i see is to implement a session id your own. Store it in the session object and the session object into a session manager that can be accessed from both application.