I've got a python/WSGI app which needs to check to see if a user has logged on to a PHP web app. The problem is that the PHP app checks if a user has logged on by comparing a value in the $_SESSION variable to a value in the cookie from the user's browser. I would prefer to avoid changing the behavior of the php app if at all possible.
My questions:

Is there anyway I can access the session variables from within python? Where should I start to look?
Are there any obvious security/performance issues I should be aware of when taking this approach?
yep. session (in default) is a regular file. so all what you need is look over session directory and find file with name of session cookie value. then - you have to implement php-like serialize/unserialize and do whatever you want.
nope
Accessing php $_SESSION from python (wsgi) - is it possible?