I've been working with JavaServer Faces (JSF) a lot lately, and one thing I was curious about was how I can get back to the old-fashioned Java session (HttpSession) stuff, and also wondered what was in the session. Here's some sample Java code that shows how you can access the traditional session from your own JSF code, and what's in that session:

FacesContext facesContext = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
HttpSession session = (HttpSession) facesContext.getExternalContext().getSession(false);
Enumeration e = session.getAttributeNames();
while (e.hasMoreElements())
{
  String attr = (String)e.nextElement();
  System.err.println("      attr  = "+ attr);
  Object value = session.getValue(attr);
  System.err.println("      value = "+ value);
}