mirror of https://github.com/django/django.git
70 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
70 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
====================================
|
|
Authentication using ``REMOTE_USER``
|
|
====================================
|
|
|
|
This document describes how to make use of external authentication sources
|
|
(where the Web server sets the ``REMOTE_USER`` environment variable) in your
|
|
Django applications. This type of authentication solution is typically seen on
|
|
intranet sites, with single sign-on solutions such as IIS and Integrated
|
|
Windows Authentication or Apache and `mod_authnz_ldap`_, `CAS`_, `Cosign`_,
|
|
`WebAuth`_, `mod_auth_sspi`_, etc.
|
|
|
|
.. _mod_authnz_ldap: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_authnz_ldap.html
|
|
.. _CAS: http://www.jasig.org/cas
|
|
.. _Cosign: http://weblogin.org
|
|
.. _WebAuth: http://www.stanford.edu/services/webauth/
|
|
.. _mod_auth_sspi: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-auth-sspi
|
|
|
|
When the Web server takes care of authentication it typically sets the
|
|
``REMOTE_USER`` environment variable for use in the underlying application. In
|
|
Django, ``REMOTE_USER`` is made available in the :attr:`request.META
|
|
<django.http.HttpRequest.META>` attribute. Django can be configured to make
|
|
use of the ``REMOTE_USER`` value using the ``RemoteUserMiddleware`` and
|
|
:class:`~django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend` classes found in
|
|
:mod:`django.contrib.auth`.
|
|
|
|
Configuration
|
|
=============
|
|
|
|
First, you must add the
|
|
:class:`django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware` to the
|
|
:setting:`MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES` setting **after** the
|
|
:class:`django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware`::
|
|
|
|
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
|
|
'...',
|
|
'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
|
|
'django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware',
|
|
'...',
|
|
)
|
|
|
|
Next, you must replace the :class:`~django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend`
|
|
with :class:`~django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend` in the
|
|
:setting:`AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS` setting::
|
|
|
|
AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
|
|
'django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend',
|
|
)
|
|
|
|
With this setup, ``RemoteUserMiddleware`` will detect the username in
|
|
``request.META['REMOTE_USER']`` and will authenticate and auto-login that user
|
|
using the :class:`~django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend`.
|
|
|
|
.. note::
|
|
Since the ``RemoteUserBackend`` inherits from ``ModelBackend``, you will
|
|
still have all of the same permissions checking that is implemented in
|
|
``ModelBackend``.
|
|
|
|
If your authentication mechanism uses a custom HTTP header and not
|
|
``REMOTE_USER``, you can subclass ``RemoteUserMiddleware`` and set the
|
|
``header`` attribute to the desired ``request.META`` key. For example::
|
|
|
|
from django.contrib.auth.middleware import RemoteUserMiddleware
|
|
|
|
class CustomHeaderMiddleware(RemoteUserMiddleware):
|
|
header = 'HTTP_AUTHUSER'
|
|
|
|
If you need more control, you can create your own authentication backend
|
|
that inherits from :class:`~django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend` and
|
|
override one or more of its attributes and methods.
|