Django, one of the most widely used Python web frameworks, offers multiple mechanisms, including an in-built User Authentication system, to manage user accounts and handle user authentication. This system allows effortless creation, editing, and deletion of user accounts, as well as handling login, logout, and managing account permissions.
Primarily, the Django authentication process involves the following steps:
1. User fills in their username and password in the login form and submits it.
2. Django receives this data and tries to authenticate the user.
3. If the credentials match with a user in the Django’s user database, Django logs them in and starts a new session.
4. If the credentials are incorrect or the user does not exist, Django returns an error message.
Regarding the technical details of this process, Django’s built-in User model is stored in the auth module and is a core component of Django’s authentication system. The following example highlights the basic process of user authentication in Django:
1. First, Django needs to include the authentication middleware (`django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware`) in the `MIDDLEWARE` setting.
2. Then, in your view function, you can use `django.contrib.auth.authenticate()` to authenticate provided credentials. For example:
```
from django.contrib.auth import authenticate, login
def my_view(request):
username = request.POST[‘username’]
password = request.POST[‘password’]
user = authenticate(request, username=username, password=password)
if user is not None:
login(request, user)
# Redirect to a success page.
…
else:
# Return an ‘invalid login’ error message.
…
```
1. The `authenticate` function checks the provided username and password against the User model. If the user exists and the password is correct, a user object is returned. The login function then saves this user as the currently active user.
Django also provides function decorators like `login_required`, ‘permission\_required’ to easily handle access control in views.
Beyond this standard username-password authentication style, Django also provides extra utilities to handle different authentication sources (Other models or even external service for authentication). It should be noted also that you could customize this authentication process to meet your business needs by writing a custom authentication backend.
The official Django documentation provides a comprehensive discussion and examples of authentication (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/topics/auth/default/), and tutorials provided by organizations like Mozilla, Django for Everybody (University of Michigan) can also serve as easy-to-follow guides to Django authentication.
References:
1. Django official documentation – https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/topics/auth/default/
2. Django for Everybody (University of Michigan) – https://www.dj4e.com/lectures/Django-User-Model.htm
3. Mozilla Django Tutorial – https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Server-side/Django/Authentication
