Specifies the number of minutes a session can be idle before it is abandoned. The timeout attribute cannot be set to a value that is greater than 525,601 minutes (1 year) for the in-process and state-server modes.
The session timeout configuration setting applies only to ASP.NET pages. Changing the session timeout value does not affect the session time-out for ASP pages. Similarly, changing the session time-out for ASP pages does not affect the session time-out for ASP.NET pages.
The default is 20 minutes.
You can access this propery in ASP.NET via HttpContext:
this.HttpContext.Session.Timeout // ASP.NET MVC controller
Page.Session.Timeout // ASP.NET Web Forms code-behind
HttpContext.Current.Session.Timeout // Elsewhere