📧 Email authentication in Django-Rest-Framework

Whether a project is small, medium, or huge, it's most common necessity is authentication. And, E-mail auth is the widely used authentication method of all.

So, today I am helping you out to build e-mail authentication in Django Rest Framework (or, DRF).

NOTE: Here's the YouTube video of me, demonstrate the same

INDEX

• Setting up the virtual environment
• Creating the project
• Configuring for authentication
• Testing API

NOTE:: I'll recommend you, to use the bash shell, otherwise your commands will be a bit different.

---

Step 1. Setting up the virtual environment

For the python virtual environment, I am using venv. You can also use pipenv or virtualenv.

Open your terminal at the desired location and type the following command-

user@pc:~$ python3 -m venv env

Hold for a while...

Now, type ls and it'll show our virtual environment env (it's the name of our environment).

user@pc:~$ ls
env
user@pc:~$

Very Important step: Don't forget to activate the environment.

Activate it by typing the following command.

user@pc:~$ source ./env/bin/activate
user@pc:~$

Now, we can install the required modules ie. django, djangorestframework, django-rest-auth and django-allauth

user@pc:~$ pip install django djangorestframework django-rest-auth django-allauth

Now, our environment is all set up. And, we can now work on setting up the project itself.

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Step 2. Creating the project

Now let's create our Django project by typing -

user@pc:~$ django-admin startproject api
user@pc:~$

Here, api is the name of our project.

And yeah, our Django project is up and running. You can see the results in your browser by visiting http://127.0.0.1:8000 . But, before that don't forget to run the server using this command.

user@pc:~$ python manage.py runserver

Till now 25% of our work is done.

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Step 3. Configuring for authentication

By default, we have Django boilerplate, and we need to convert it to build API.

1. Add rest_framework to INSTALLED_APPS inside your settings.py file.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'django.contrib.sites',

    'allauth',
    'allauth.account',
    'allauth.socialaccount',

    'rest_auth',
    'rest_auth.registration',

    'rest_framework',
    'rest_framework.authtoken',

]

1. Add SITE_ID to settings.py file.

SITE_ID = 1

1. Add REST_FRAMEWORK configurations to settings.py file.

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    # Use Django's standard `django.contrib.auth` permissions,
    # or allow read-only access for unauthenticated users.
    'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework.permissions.DjangoModelPermissionsOrAnonReadOnly'
    ]
}

1. Add these configurations to settings.py file for email authentication. Because by default Django uses authentication by username but we need email auth.

ACCOUNT_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD = "email"
ACCOUNT_EMAIL_REQUIRED = True
ACCOUNT_USERNAME_REQUIRED = False

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    # Needed to login by username in Django admin, regardless of `allauth`
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',

    # `allauth` specific authentication methods, such as login by e-mail
    'allauth.account.auth_backends.AuthenticationBackend',
]

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.console.EmailBackend'

1. Change your urls.py code with this.

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('auth/', include('rest_auth.urls')),
    path('auth/registration/', include('rest_auth.registration.urls')),
]

1. Now we can migrate the database-

user@pc:~$ python manage.py migrate

1. Let's create a Super User to access our Django Admin Panel.

user@pc:~$ python manage.py createsuperuser
username: root
email: [e-mail]
password: 
Confirm Password: 
Successfully created superuser!
user@pc:~$

now, run the server again and visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/

Login with your admin credentials.

---

Step 4. Testing API

Open Postman or any other API testing application.

1. First, let's test the Signup or Registration.

Make a POST request to 127.0.0.1:8000/auth/registration/

Send the following form data along:

request:

{
    email: "[e-mail]"
    password1: "MySecurePassword"
    password2: "MySecurePassword" 
}

response:

{
    key: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}

1. Now, let's test Login.

Make a POST request to 127.0.0.1:8000/auth/login/

Send the following form data along:

request:

{
    email: "[e-mail]"
    password: "MySecurePassword"
}

response:

{
    key: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}

NOTE:* In the above responses, key is your web token, you can use to access the auth prevented routes.

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Hurray! You just learned how to set up API end-points for Email authentication in Django Rest Framework.

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I hope, you guys liked this quick tutorial. If so, then please don't forget to drop a Like ❤️

And also, help me reach 1k Subscribers 🤩, on my YouTube channel.

Happy Coding! 😃💻

Comments

[einayo_a]

When I used 127.0.0.1:8000/auth/registeration/ on POSTMAN it kept saying "{
"email": [
"This field is required."
],
"password1": [
"This field is required."
],
"password2": [
"This field is required."
]
}"

[Rajesh Joshi]

You have to pass these into the body or as raw JSON data.

[einayo_a]

When I used 127.0.0.1:8000/auth/registeration/ on POSTMAN it kept saying "{
"email": [
"This field is required."
],
"password1": [
"This field is required."
],
"password2": [
"This field is required."
]
}" is there anyway I can solve this error it also shows error code 400 Bad request.