django-rest-authemail 0.1.0

A RESTful API for user signup and authentication using email addresses

django-rest-authemail is a Django/Python application that provides a RESTful API interface for user signup and authentication. Email addresses are used for authentication, rather than usernames. Because the authentication user model is based on Django’s AbstractBaseUser and is itself abstract, the model can be extended without the need for additional database tables. Token authentication allows the API to be accessed from a variety of front ends, including Django, AngularJS clients, and iOS and Android mobile apps.

Features

• API endpoints for signup, signup email verification, login, logout, password reset, password reset verification, password change, and user detail.

• Extensible abstract user model.

• Perform password confirmation and other client-side validation on the front end for a better user experience.

• Token authentication.

• User models in the admin interface include inlines for signup and password reset codes.

• Uses the Django REST Framework.

• An example project is included and contains example UI templates.

• Supports and tested under Python 2.7.6.

Installation

django-rest-authemail is available on the Python Package Index (PyPI) at https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-rest-authemail.

Install django-rest-authemail using one of the following techniques.

• Use pip:

pip install django-rest-authemail

• Download the .tar.gz file from PyPI and install it yourself

• Download the source from Github and install it yourself

If you install it yourself, also install the Django, Django REST Framework, South, and requests.

Usage

In the settings.py file of your project, include south, rest_framework, rest_framework.authtoken, and authemail in INSTALLED_APPS. Set the authentication scheme for the Django REST Framework to TokenAuthentication.

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'south',        # Only if you're relying on South for migrations.
    'rest_framework',
    'rest_framework.authtoken',
    'authemail',
    ...
)

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
    )
}

Create a Django application for your user data. For example,

python manage.py startapp accounts

In the models.py file of your application, extend EmailAbstractUser, add custom fields, and assign objects to EmailUserManager(). For example,

from django.db import models
from authemail.models import EmailUserManager, EmailAbstractUser

class MyUser(EmailAbstractUser):
    # Custom fields
    date_of_birth = models.DateField('Date of birth', null=True,
        blank=True)

    # Required
    objects = EmailUserManager()

In the settings.py file of your project, include your application in INSTALLED_APPS. Set AUTH_USER_MODEL to the class of your user model. For example,

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'accounts.MyUser'

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'south',        # Only if you are relying on South for migrations.
    'rest_framework',
    'rest_framework.authtoken',
    'authemail',
    'accounts',
    ...
)

In the admin.py file of your application, extend EmailUserAdmin to add your custom fields. For example,

from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from authemail.admin import EmailUserAdmin

class MyUserAdmin(EmailUserAdmin):
    fieldsets = (
        (None, {'fields': ('email', 'password')}),
        ('Personal Info', {'fields': ('first_name', 'last_name')}),
        ('Permissions', {'fields': ('is_active', 'is_staff',
                                       'is_superuser', 'is_verified',
                                       'groups', 'user_permissions')}),
        ('Important dates', {'fields': ('last_login', 'date_joined')}),
        ('Custom info', {'fields': ('date_of_birth',)}),
    )

admin.site.unregister(get_user_model())
admin.site.register(get_user_model(), MyUserAdmin)

Create the database tables with syncdb and South’s migrate. Set up a superuser when prompted by syncdb.

python manage.py syncdb
python manage.py migrate

Convert your accounts application to South. You will receive an error message from South, so fake the initial migration as a workaround (see http://south.aeracode.org/ticket/1179).

python manage.py convert_to_south accounts
python manage.py migrate accounts 0001 --fake

Check your setup by starting a Web server on your local machine:

python manage.py runserver

Direct your browser to the Django /admin and log in.

127.0.0.1:8000/admin

You should see Users, Groups, Password reset codes, Signup codes, and Tokens. If you click on Users, you should see your superuser account.

Add the authemail API endpoints to your project’s urls.py file. For example,

from accounts import views

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),

    url(r'^api/accounts/', include('authemail.urls')),
)

When users signup or reset their password, they will be sent an email with a link and verification code. Include email settings in your project’s settings.py file. See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#email-host for more information. For example,

# Email settings
DEFAULT_EMAIL_FROM = '[e-mail]'
DEFAULT_EMAIL_BCC = ''

EMAIL_HOST = 'smtp.gmail.com'
EMAIL_PORT = 587
EMAIL_HOST_USER = '[e-mail]'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx'
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_USE_SSL = False
SERVER_EMAIL = '[e-mail]'

Try out authemail API calls by firing up python and using the authemail wrapper methods (runserver should still be executing). For example,

python
>>> from authemail import wrapper
>>> account = wrapper.Authemail()
>>> first_name = 'Your first name'
>>> last_name = 'Your last name'
>>> email = '[e-mail]'
>>> password = 'Your password'
>>> response = account.signup(first_name=first_name, last_name=last_name,
... email=email, password=password)

In the Django /admin, you should see a new user (not verified) and a new signup code. You should receive an email at [e-mail]. Use the code in the email to verify your email address using the wrapper (normally, the link in the email would point to the front end, which would issue the signup verify request to the API):

>>> code = '7f31e7a515df266532df4e00e0cf1967a7de7d17'
>>> response = account.signup_verify(code=code)

In the Django /admin, the new user is now verified and the signup code is absent. The new user can now login and you can inspect the associated login token:

>>> response = account.login(email=email, password=password)
>>> account.token
u'a84d062c1b60a36e6740eb60c6f9da8d1f709322'

You will find the same token for the user in the Token table in the Django /admin. Find out more information about the user (insert your token):

>>> token = 'a84d062c1b60a36e6740eb60c6f9da8d1f709322'
>>> response = account.users_me(token=token)
>>> response
{u'first_name': u'Your first name', u'last_name': u'Your last name', u'email': u'[e-mail]'}

Use the authentication token to logout:

>>> response = account.logout(token=token)
>>> response
{u'success': u'User logged out.'}

Play with password reset and change!

If you are having trouble getting your code to execute, or are just curious, try out the Django REST Framework Browsable API. If you type an authemail API endpoint into your browser, the Browsable API should appear (runserver should still be executing). For example,

127.0.0.1/api/accounts/signup

In the Content: field of the Browsable API, type:

{
    "first_name": "Your first name",
    "last_name": "Your last name",
    "email": "[e-mail]",
    "password": "Your password"
}

Then click on POST. You will either receive an error message to help in your debugging, or, if your signup was successful:

{
    "first_name": "Your first name",
    "last_name": "Your last name",
    "email": "[e-mail]",
}

Try out the other authemail API endpoints with the Django REST Framework Browsable API.

Make authemail API calls with front end code. To get started, follow the steps in the README.rst for the example_project. Enhance the Django code in the example_project or extend the concepts to AngularJS, iOS, and Android front ends.

When calling endpoints from the front end that require authentication (logout, password/change, and users/me), include the authorization token key in the HTTP header. For example,

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

Here’s an example using curl,

curl -X GET 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/accounts/logout' \
     -H 'Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b'

Authemail API Endpoints

For the endpoints that follow, the base path is shown as /api/accounts. This path is for example purposes. It can be customized in your project’s urls.py file.

POST /api/accounts/signup

Call this endpoint to sign up a new user and send a verification email. Sample email templates are found in authemail/templates/authemail. To override the email templates, copy and modify the sample templates, or create your own, in your_app/templates/authemail.

Your front end should handle password confirmation, and if desired, require the visitor to input their first and last names.

Unverified users can sign up multiple times, but only the latest signup code will be active.

• Payload

  • email (required)

  • password (required)

  • first_name (optional)

  • last_name (optional)

• Possible responses

201 (Created)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": "[e-mail]"
    "first_name": "Amelia",
    "last_name": "Earhart",
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": [
        "This field is required."
    ],
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

{
    "email": [
        "Enter a valid email address."
    ]
}

{
    "detail": "User with this Email address already exists."
}

GET /api/accounts/signup/verify/?code=<code>

When the user clicks the link in the verification email, the front end should call this endpoint to verify the user.

• Parameters

  • code (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "User verified."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Unable to verify user."
}

POST /api/accounts/login

Call this endpoint to log in a user. Use the authentication token in future calls to identify the user.

• Payload

  • email (required)

  • password (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "token": "91ec67d093ded89e0a752f35188802c261899013"
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ],
    "email": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

{
    "email": [
        "Enter a valid email address."
    ]
}

401 (Unauthorized)
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Unable to login with provided credentials."
}

{
    "detail": "User account not active."
}

GET /api/accounts/logout

Call this endpoint to log out an authenticated user.

• HTTP Header

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "User logged out."
}

401 (Unauthorized)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Invalid token"
}

POST /api/accounts/password/reset

Call this endpoint to send an email to a user so they can reset their password. Similar to signup verification, the password reset email templates are found in authemail/templates/authemail. Override the default templates by placing your similarly-named templates in your_app/templates/authemail.

• Payload

  • email (required)

• Possible responses

201 (Created)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": "[e-mail]"
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

{
    "email": [
        "Enter a valid email address."
    ]
}

{
    "detail": "Password reset not allowed."
}

GET /api/accounts/password/reset/verify/?code=<code>

When the user clicks the link in the password reset email, call this endpoint to verify the password reset code.

• Parameters

  • code (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "User verified."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Unable to verify user."
}

POST /api/accounts/password/reset/verified

Call this endpoint with the password reset code and the new password, to reset the user’s password. The front end should prompt the user for a confirmation password and give feedback if the passwords don’t match.

• Payload

  • code (required)

  • password (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "Password reset."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Unable to verify user."
}

POST /api/accounts/password/change

Call this endpoint to change a user’s password.

• HTTP Header

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

• Payload

  • password (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "Password changed."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

401 (Unauthorized)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Invalid token"
}

GET /api/accounts/users/me

Call this endpoint after logging in and obtaining an authorization token to learn more about the user.

• HTTP Header

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "id": 1,
    "email": "[e-mail]",
    "first_name": "Amelia",
    "last_name": "Earhart",
}

401 (Unauthorized)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Invalid token"
}

Wrapper

A wrapper is available to access the Authemail API with Python code. First create an instance of the Authemail class, then call methods to access the API. There is a one-to-one mapping between the endpoints and instance methods. For example,

from authemail import wrapper

account = wrapper.Authemail()
response = account.signup(first_name=first_name, last_name=last_name,
    email=email, password=password)

if 'detail' in response:
    # Handle error condition
else:
    # Handle good response

See example_project/views.py for more sample usage.

Inspiration and Ideas

Inspiration and ideas for django-rest-authemail were derived from:

• django-rest-framework

• django-email-as-username

• django-registration

• django-rest-auth

• tmdbsimple