Django — Authentication

Built-in Auth

Django provides built-in authentication views:

# urls.py
from django.contrib.auth import views as auth_views

urlpatterns = [
    path('login/', auth_views.LoginView.as_view(), name='login'),
    path('logout/', auth_views.LogoutView.as_view(), name='logout'),
    path('password-change/', auth_views.PasswordChangeView.as_view(), name='password_change'),
]

Settings

# settings.py
LOGIN_URL = '/login/'
LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = '/'
LOGOUT_REDIRECT_URL = '/'

Login Template

<!-- templates/registration/login.html -->
<form method="post">
    {% csrf_token %}
    {{ form.as_p }}
    <button type="submit">Login</button>
</form>

Custom Registration

# accounts/forms.py
class RegistrationForm(forms.Form):
    username = forms.CharField(max_length=50)
    email = forms.EmailField()
    password = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput)
    
    def save(self):
        user = User.objects.create_user(
            username=self.cleaned_data['username'],
            email=self.cleaned_data['email'],
            password=self.cleaned_data['password']
        )
        return user

Protecting Views

from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required

@login_required
def dashboard(request):
    return render(request, 'dashboard.html')

Mini Practice

1. Set up login/logout URLs
2. Create registration form
3. Use @login_required decorator
4. Customize auth templates

Up Next

Continue with User Management — managing user profiles.