django-tenants-router 1.0.4

Multi-tenant database routing for Django with Redis caching

django-tenants-router

A production-ready Django library for multi-tenant database routing with a Redis caching layer, automatic tenant resolution middleware, and developer-friendly test utilities.

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Table of Contents

1. Architecture Overview
2. Installation
3. Quick Start
4. Configuration Reference
5. How It Works
6. Management Commands
7. Middleware
8. Context Managers & Decorators
9. DRF Integration
10. Redis Caching
11. Testing
12. Admin Interface
13. CI/CD & Scripts
14. Security Notes

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Architecture Overview

                          ┌───────────────────────────────┐
                          │         ROOT DATABASE          │
                          │  (default DB / "router DB")   │
                          │                                │
                          │  • tenants_tenant              │
                          │  • tenants_tenant_db_config    │
                          └──────────────┬────────────────┘
                                         │  reads at startup
                                         ▼
                          ┌───────────────────────────────┐
                          │       TenantRegistry           │
                          │   (in-memory: id → alias)     │
                          └──────────────┬────────────────┘
                                         │
               ┌─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┐
               │                         │                         │
               ▼                         ▼                         ▼
        ┌─────────────┐          ┌─────────────┐          ┌─────────────┐
        │  Tenant A   │          │  Tenant B   │          │  Tenant C   │
        │  (acme_db)  │          │ (globex_db) │          │  (init_db)  │
        └─────────────┘          └─────────────┘          └─────────────┘

           Redis cache layer sits in front of registry lookups (optional).

• Root DB stores only tenant configuration — no business data.
• Tenant DBs store all application data. They are isolated from each other.
• Redis caches tenant_id → db_alias lookups for sub-millisecond routing.
• TenantMiddleware resolves the tenant on every request and sets a thread-local DB alias.
• TenantDatabaseRouter routes all ORM calls to the correct DB automatically.

---

Installation

pip install django-tenants-router

# With Redis support (recommended):
pip install "django-tenants-router[redis]"

# With DRF integration:
pip install "django-tenants-router[drf]"

# Everything:
pip install "django-tenants-router[all]"

---

Quick Start

1. Add to INSTALLED_APPS

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "django_tenants_router",
]

2. Configure settings

DATABASES = {
    "default": {  # Root DB — stores tenant configs only
        "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.postgresql",
        "NAME": "root_db",
        "USER": "postgres",
        "PASSWORD": "secret",
        "HOST": "localhost",
        "PORT": "5432",
    }
    # Tenant DBs are added dynamically at startup from TenantDatabaseConfig rows.
}

DATABASE_ROUTERS = ["django_tenants_router.router.TenantDatabaseRouter"]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    ...
    "django_tenants_router.middleware.TenantMiddleware",
]

TENANT_ROUTER_CONFIG = {
    "ROOT_DB": "default",
    "REDIS_URL": "redis://localhost:6379/0",
    "CACHE_TTL": 300,                          # seconds
    "CACHE_KEY_PREFIX": "tenants",
    "TENANT_HEADER": "HTTP_X_TENANT_ID",       # HTTP header (Django META format)
    "TENANT_REQUIRED": False,                  # True → return 400/403 if no tenant
    "TENANT_EXEMPT_PATHS": ["/admin/", "/health/"],
    "COMMON_APPS": ("admin", "auth", "contenttypes", "sessions") # Add the applications which you want migrate as common
}

3. Run root DB migrations

python manage.py migrate          # migrates root DB (default) only

4. Create your first tenant

python manage.py create_tenant \
    --name "ACME Corp" \
    --slug acme \
    --db-host localhost \
    --db-name acme_db \
    --db-user acme_user \
    --db-password secret \
    --run-migrations

5. Make API calls with tenant ID in header

GET /api/orders/
X-Tenant-ID: <tenant-uuid>

All ORM calls in that request now automatically hit the ACME tenant database.

---

Configuration Reference

Key	Default	Description
ROOT_DB	"default"	Django DB alias for the root / router database.
REDIS_URL	None	Redis connection URL. Omit to disable caching.
CACHE_TTL	300	Cache TTL in seconds.
CACHE_KEY_PREFIX	"tenants"	Redis key namespace.
TENANT_HEADER	"HTTP_X_TENANT_ID"	Django META header name (HTTP_* format).
TENANT_REQUIRED	False	Reject requests with no resolvable tenant.
TENANT_EXEMPT_PATHS	["/admin/", "/health/"]	Paths that bypass tenant resolution.
ENCRYPTION_DECYPTION_KEY	Generated Key	Pass you Fernet Key to Encrypt/Decrypt Tenants DB Passwords
COMMON_APPS	("admin", "auth", "contenttypes", "sessions")	Here you need to define the app names which will use as a common to migrate in both root db and tenant db as well

---

How It Works

Startup

1. DjangoTenantsRouterConfig.ready() fires.
2. TenantRegistry.load_from_db() reads all active Tenant + TenantDatabaseConfig rows from the root DB.
3. Each tenant's DB config is injected into settings.DATABASES and Django's connection handler.

Per-request flow

Request arrives
     │
     ▼
TenantMiddleware
     │  resolves tenant_id from: header
     │
     ├─ Redis hit?  →  db_alias  ─────────────────────────────────┐
     ├─ Registry hit?  →  db_alias + write to Redis  ─────────────┤
     └─ DB fallback  →  db_alias + register + cache  ─────────────┤
                                                                   │
                                                        set_tenant_db(db_alias)
                                                                   │
                                                               view runs
                                                                   │
                                                     ORM → TenantDatabaseRouter
                                                     routes to correct tenant DB
                                                                   │
                                                        response returned
                                                                   │
                                                         clear_tenant_db()

---

Management Commands

migrate (standard)

Migrates only the root DB (due to allow_migrate rules in the router):

python manage.py migrate

migrate_tenant

Migrates a single tenant database:

python manage.py migrate_tenant --tenant-db acme
python manage.py migrate_tenant --tenant-db acme --app orders
python manage.py migrate_tenant --tenant-db acme --fake-initial

migrate_all_tenants

Migrates every registered tenant database (skips root DB):

python manage.py migrate_all_tenants
python manage.py migrate_all_tenants --parallel --workers 8
python manage.py migrate_all_tenants --exclude acme staging --app orders

create_tenant

Interactive or flag-driven tenant creation:

python manage.py create_tenant
python manage.py create_tenant \
    --name "Globex Corp" --slug globex \
    --db-host db.globex.internal --db-name globex \
    --db-user globex_user --db-password s3cr3t \
    --run-migrations

tenant_status

List all registered tenants and optionally verify connectivity:

python manage.py tenant_status
python manage.py tenant_status --ping-dbs --check-cache

---

Middleware

Add to MIDDLEWARE:

# Sync (WSGI)
"django_tenants_router.middleware.TenantMiddleware"

# Async (ASGI / Channels)
"django_tenants_router.middleware.AsyncTenantMiddleware"

After the middleware runs, request.tenant_id and request.tenant_db are available in your views.

---

Context Managers & Decorators

Manual context switching

from django_tenants_router.router import tenant_db_context, tenant_context_by_id

# By alias
with tenant_db_context("tenant_acme"):
    orders = Order.objects.all()

# By tenant UUID
with tenant_context_by_id(tenant_id):
    orders = Order.objects.all()

View decorators

from django_tenants_router.decorators import with_tenant, with_tenant_slug

# Routes by URL kwarg
@with_tenant("tenant_id")
def order_list(request, tenant_id):
    return JsonResponse({"orders": list(Order.objects.values())})

# Routes by slug
@with_tenant_slug("tenant_slug")
def dashboard(request, tenant_slug):
    ...

# Run a function for every tenant
from django_tenants_router.decorators import for_each_tenant

@for_each_tenant()
def send_daily_report(db_alias):
    users = User.objects.using(db_alias).filter(active=True)
    ...

---

DRF Integration

from django_tenants_router.drf import TenantModelViewSet, TenantPermission

class OrderViewSet(TenantModelViewSet):
    serializer_class = OrderSerializer
    queryset = Order.objects.all()
    # All queryset operations are automatically scoped to the tenant DB.
    # Response includes _tenant metadata (id, plan).

URL pattern:

router.register(r"tenants/(?P<tenant_id>[^/.]+)/orders", OrderViewSet)

---

Redis Caching

from django_tenants_router.cache import (
    cache_tenant_db,
    get_cached_tenant_db,
    invalidate_tenant,
    cache_tenant_metadata,
    cache_health_check,
    flush_all_tenant_cache,
)

# Warm the cache manually
cache_tenant_db("uuid-1234", "tenant_acme")

# Lookup
alias = get_cached_tenant_db("uuid-1234")

# Invalidate after config change
invalidate_tenant("uuid-1234")

# Health check
print(cache_health_check())
# {'status': 'ok', 'redis_version': '7.0.0', 'uptime_seconds': 86400}

If Redis is unavailable, all cache operations silently no-op. The library always falls back to the in-memory registry or root DB.

---

Testing

TenantTestCase

from django_tenants_router.test_utils import TenantTestCase

class OrderTest(TenantTestCase):
    tenant_db_alias = "tenant_acme"

    def test_create_order(self):
        with self.tenant_context():
            order = Order.objects.create(amount=100)
            self.assertEqual(Order.objects.count(), 1)

    def test_queryset_on_correct_db(self):
        qs = Order.objects.using(self.tenant_db_alias).all()
        self.assertQueryRunsOnTenantDB(qs)

MockTenantMixin

Patch the registry so tests never need real DB rows:

from django_tenants_router.test_utils import MockTenantMixin

class MyTest(MockTenantMixin, TestCase):
    mock_tenants = {
        "uuid-111": "tenant_alpha",
        "uuid-222": "tenant_beta",
    }

    def test_something(self):
        from django_tenants_router.registry import TenantRegistry
        alias = TenantRegistry.get_db_for_tenant_id("uuid-111")
        self.assertEqual(alias, "tenant_alpha")

override_tenant_db

from django_tenants_router.test_utils import override_tenant_db

with override_tenant_db("tenant_acme"):
    # ORM calls go to tenant_acme
    ...

Running the test suite

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
pytest --cov=django_tenants_router --cov-report=term-missing

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Admin Interface

The Django admin includes:

• Tenant list with live DB connectivity badge.
• Inline DB config editor on the Tenant change page.
• Bulk actions: activate, deactivate, flush Redis cache.

---

CI/CD & Scripts

# In your Dockerfile or entrypoint:
python manage.py migrate                        # root DB
python scripts/migrate_all_tenants.py --parallel --workers 4

Or via the management command:

python manage.py migrate_all_tenants --parallel --workers 4

---

Security Notes

• Passwords in DB:
  • Step 1

    from cryptography.fernet import Fernet
    print(Fernet.generate_key().decode())
    

  • Step 2

    TENANT_ROUTER_CONFIG = {
        "ENCRYPTION_DECYPTION_KEY": "bkey.....="
    }
    

• Cross-tenant isolation: The router blocks cross-tenant ORM relations at the allow_relation level.
• TENANT_REQUIRED: Set to True in all environment APIs so unauthenticated callers cannot accidentally hit the default DB if set to False then then that will not work.

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License

MIT

Stable Version

django_tenants_router-1.0.4