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Constantine
Constantine

Posted on • Edited on

Django + React, Redux and JWT

#python #django #react #redux

Preface

For the past 4 years I've been coding in Python and when it comes to web I always go with Django + Bootstrap and jQuery. I also know how to style a page with css but nothing super fancy. And I always stayed far away from modern SPAs and their frameworks/libraries such as React, Angular or Vue. I tried it once and the experience was horrible. I knew nothing about babel, webpack, yarn and how it all glues together. Not to mention arrow functions and destructuring in JS. But eventually I decided to try it one more time and spent I-don't-know-how-many hours watching tutorials on React. So now this is my attempt to make Django backend work with React frontend.

The goal of this article is to have a minimal backend with JSON Web Token authentication and simple frontend with login/logout functionality as well as a protected page for logged-in users only. And this is mostly for me to try to make it all work. So if and when I'll need to reproduce the steps in the future I could just review what I did and repeat the steps. And for that reason I decided to:

  • leave the default SQLite database so it could be replaced with what's needed
  • not to use any UI frameworks or any styles, because that would be opinionated and not suitable for every project

One more thing to note. I won't get in much details about the code listed here. There are tons of useful information out there if you want to really understand things. I'll list every resource that helped me on my way. This is just a how-to guide. And the complete code is available on my github, as well as gitlab.

With all that out of the way, embrace yourself for a long read! And I hope it will be of any use to you 😊

Prerequisites

You'll need to have following packages installed on your system: python (version 3, no legacy code here 😎), pip, node, npm, yarn. I'm using the Arch linux, so commands listed should be the same or similar to any other Unix-like system.

Let's start with creating a project directory, mkdir djact and cd into it. Then create virtual environment with python -m venv venv and activate it - source venv/bin/activate.

Creating Django project

Install Django, REST Framework and JWT handling with pip install django djangorestframework djangorestframework-simplejwt django-cors-headers. The last package is necessary to allow our development react server to interact with Django app. And let's save our dependencies after we install something: pip freeze > requirements.txt. Now start a new project django-admin startproject djact .. Note the . in the end, that's telling Django to create project in current directory.

Apps

I like all my apps in a separate directory as well as settings. So let's make it: mkdir djact/{apps, settings}. And move setting.py in a newly created settings directory. To make settings a package touch djact/settings/__init__.py and insert following lines in there:

# djact/settings/__init__.py
from .settings import *
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Here and in every file listing first line will be a comment with a relative path to the file. Just so you know.

This way we won't need to override the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE variable.

Core

Now create a directory for the core app mkdir djact/apps/core and the app itself python manage.py startapp core djact/apps/core. Inside this newly created directory mkdir {templates,templatetags}.
Create an empty __init__.py and react loader templatetag load_react.py inside templatetags dir:

# djact/apps/core/templatetags/load_react.py
from django import template
from django.conf import settings
from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe

register = template.Library()


@register.simple_tag
def load_react():
    css = load_css()
    js = load_js()
    return mark_safe(''.join(css + js))


def load_css():
    return [
        f'<link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/{asset}"/>'
        for asset in load_files('.css')
    ]


def load_js():
    return [
        f'<script type="text/javascript" src="/static/{asset}"></script>'
        for asset in load_files('.js')
    ]


def load_files(extension: str):
    files = []
    for path in settings.STATICFILES_DIRS:
        for file_name in path.iterdir():
            if file_name.name.endswith(extension):
                files.append(file_name.name)

    return files
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I know there is a django-webpack-loader but I prefer a simpler approach like the above.

Next create index.html with the following content inside templates dir:

{# djact/apps/core/templates/index.html #}
{% load static %}
{% load load_react %}
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8"/>
        <title>Djact</title>
        <link rel="icon" href="{% static 'favicon.ico' %}">
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="app"></div>
        {% load_react %}
    </body>
</html>
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Authentication

Next we need an app for authentication, so mkdir djact/apps/authentication and python manage.py startapp authentication djact/apps/authentication. Inside this directory edit the models.py file:

# djact/apps/authentication/models.py
from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser


class User(AbstractUser):
    class Meta:
        verbose_name = 'User'
        verbose_name_plural = 'Users'

    def __str__(self):
        return f'<{self.id}> {self.username}'
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Next we need a serializer for users to sign up djact/apps/authentication/serializers.py:

# djact/apps/authentication/serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers

from .models import User


class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    email = serializers.EmailField(required=True)
    username = serializers.CharField()
    password = serializers.CharField(min_length=8, write_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('email', 'username', 'password')
        extra_kwargs = {'password': {'write_only': True}}

    def create(self, validated_data):
        password = validated_data.pop('password', None)
        instance = self.Meta.model(**validated_data)
        if password is not None:
            instance.set_password(password)

        instance.save()

        return instance
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Then the view djact/apps/authentication/views.py:

# djact/apps/authentication/views.py
from rest_framework import permissions
from rest_framework.generics import CreateAPIView
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.views import APIView

from .serializers import UserSerializer


class UserCreate(CreateAPIView):
    permission_classes = (permissions.AllowAny,)
    authentication_classes = ()
    serializer_class = UserSerializer


user_create = UserCreate.as_view()


class Protected(APIView):
    def get(self, request):
        return Response(data={'type': 'protected'})


protected = Protected.as_view()
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The Protected view is to check that we can access the page only after logging in.

And for the urls we'll have paths to our two views and also to obtain and refresh JWT:

# djact/apps/authentication/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from rest_framework_simplejwt import views as jwt_views

from . import views

app_name = 'authentication'
urlpatterns = [
    path(
        'users/create/',
        views.user_create,
        name='sign-up'
    ),
    path(
        'token/obtain/',
        jwt_views.TokenObtainPairView.as_view(),
        name='token-create'
    ),
    path(
        'token/refresh/',
        jwt_views.TokenRefreshView.as_view(),
        name='token-refresh'
    ),
    path(
        'protected/',
        views.protected,
        name='protected'
    )
]
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Update main urls.py at djact:

# djact/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('api/', include('djact.apps.authentication.urls')),
]
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Settings

I love the new Pathlib module so lets rewrite everything using this instead of os. I'm using django-environ to handle environment variables so let's install that pip install django-environ && pip freeze > requirements.txt. Copy DJANGO_SECRET_KEY from existing config so you won't need to generate a new one (although it's easy). We'll put that in a .env file.

# djact/settings/settings.py
import pathlib
from datetime import timedelta

import environ

BASE_DIR = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent.parent
PROJECT_ROOT = BASE_DIR.parent

env = environ.Env()

# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = env.str('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY')

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = env.bool('DJANGO_DEBUG', False)

ALLOWED_HOSTS = env.list('DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS', default=list())

# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'djact.apps.authentication',
    'djact.apps.core',

    'rest_framework',

    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'djact.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'djact.wsgi.application'

# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': str(BASE_DIR.joinpath('db.sqlite3')),
    }
}

# Password validation
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
    },
]

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'authentication.User'

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.permissions.IsAuthenticated',
    ),
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework_simplejwt.authentication.JWTAuthentication',
    ),  #
}
SIMPLE_JWT = {
    'ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME': timedelta(minutes=30),
    'REFRESH_TOKEN_LIFETIME': timedelta(days=30),
    'ROTATE_REFRESH_TOKENS': True,
    'BLACKLIST_AFTER_ROTATION': False,
    'ALGORITHM': 'HS256',
    'SIGNING_KEY': SECRET_KEY,
    'VERIFYING_KEY': None,
    'AUTH_HEADER_TYPES': ('JWT',),
    'USER_ID_FIELD': 'id',
    'USER_ID_CLAIM': 'user_id',
    'AUTH_TOKEN_CLASSES': ('rest_framework_simplejwt.tokens.AccessToken',),
    'TOKEN_TYPE_CLAIM': 'token_type',
}

LOGIN_URL = '/login'
LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = '/'
LOGOUT_REDIRECT_URL = '/login'

# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'ru'

TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Moscow'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/howto/static-files/

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    PROJECT_ROOT.joinpath('static'),
]

STATIC_ROOT = PROJECT_ROOT / 'public' / 'static'
pathlib.Path(STATIC_ROOT).mkdir(exist_ok=True, parents=True)

MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = PROJECT_ROOT / 'public' / 'media'
pathlib.Path(MEDIA_ROOT).mkdir(exist_ok=True, parents=True)

# Logging

LOG_DIR = PROJECT_ROOT / 'log'
LOG_DIR.mkdir(exist_ok=True)

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'formatters': {
        'console': {
            'format': '%(levelname)-8s %(name)-12s %(module)s:%(lineno)s\n'
                      '%(message)s'
        },
        'file': {
            'format': '%(asctime)s %(levelname)-8s %(name)-12s '
                      '%(module)s:%(lineno)s\n%(message)s'
        },
    },
    'handlers': {
        'console': {
            'class': 'logging.StreamHandler',
            'formatter': 'console',
        },
        'file': {
            'class': 'logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler',
            'formatter': 'file',
            'filename': LOG_DIR / 'django.log',
            'backupCount': 10,  # keep at most 10 files
            'maxBytes': 5 * 1024 * 1024  # 5MB
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django.request': {
            'handlers': ['console', 'file'],
            'level': 'DEBUG',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    },
}

LOGGING['loggers'].update(
    {app: {
        'handlers': ['console', 'file'],
        'level': 'DEBUG',
        'propagate': True,
    } for app in INSTALLED_APPS}
)

# Load dev config

if DEBUG:
    try:
        from .dev import *
    except ModuleNotFoundError:
        print('Dev config not found')
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We can override some settings or add something related only to dev environment in djact/settings/dev.py that's why we need last 5 lines. My dev.py is looking like this:

# djact/settings/dev.py
from .settings import LOGGING, INSTALLED_APPS, MIDDLEWARE

LOGGING['handlers']['file']['backupCount'] = 1

INSTALLED_APPS += ['corsheaders']
CORS_ORIGIN_ALLOW_ALL = True
MIDDLEWARE.insert(2, 'corsheaders.middleware.CorsMiddleware')
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Here we tell Django to allow interacting with our react dev server, which will be running on different port and therefore considered as cross origin.

Our .env.example file is looking like this:

<!-- .env.example -->
PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1

DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=random long string
DJANGO_DEBUG=True for dev environment|False or omit completely for production
DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS=localhost,127.0.0.1:8000,0.0.0.0:8000
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So, create a .env file with those variables.

Now create urls.py inside djact/apps/core/ directory containing:

# djact/apps/core/urls.py
from django.urls import re_path
from django.views.generic import TemplateView

app_name = 'core'
urlpatterns = [
    re_path(r'^.*$', TemplateView.as_view(template_name='index.html'), name='index'),
]
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And update main urls file:

# djact/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('api/', include('djact.apps.authentication.urls')),
    path('', include('djact.apps.core.urls')),
]
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Then run python manage.py makemigrations and python manage.py migrate.

Our directory structure should look like this:

.
├── djact
│   ├── apps
│   │   ├── authentication
│   │   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── migrations
│   │   │   │   ├── 0001_initial.py
│   │   │   │   └── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── models.py
│   │   │   ├── serializers.py
│   │   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   │   └── views.py
│   │   └── core
│   │       ├── admin.py
│   │       ├── apps.py
│   │       ├── __init__.py
│   │       ├── migrations
│   │       │   └── __init__.py
│   │       ├── templates
│   │       │   └── index.html
│   │       ├── templatetags
│   │       │   ├── __init__.py
│   │       │   └── load_react.py
│   │       └── urls.py
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings
│   │   ├── dev.py
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── .env
├── .env.example
├── manage.py
└── requirements.txt
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Creating React application

Let's mkdir for our React frontend and dive into it - mkdir frontend && cd frontend.

First initialize the frontend project with yarn init and answer the questions. Here is my example:

$ yarn init
yarn init v1.22.4
question name (frontend): djact
question version (1.0.0):
question description: Django + React
question entry point (index.js):
question repository url:
question author: Constantine
question license (MIT):
question private:
success Saved package.json
Done in 34.53s.
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Now we can add dependencies with yarn add react react-dom axios react-redux redux redux-thunk reselect. And our dev dependencies with yarn add -D eslint babel-eslint babel-polyfill eslint-plugin-import eslint-plugin-react eslint-plugin-react-hooks eslint-loader style-loader css-loader postcss-loader webpack-dev-server mini-css-extract-plugin cssnano html-webpack-plugin npm-run-all rimraf redux-immutable-state-invariant webpack webpack-cli babel-loader @babel/core @babel/node @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-react.

Configuring

Create .eslintrc.js in current directory with following content:

// frontend/.eslintrc.js
module.exports = {
  parser: "babel-eslint",
  env: {
    browser: true,
    commonjs: true,
    es6: true,
    node: true,
    jest: true,
  },
  parserOptions: {
    ecmaVersion: 2020,
    ecmaFeatures: {
      impliedStrict: true,
      jsx: true,
    },
    sourceType: "module",
  },
  plugins: ["react", "react-hooks"],
  extends: [
    "eslint:recommended",
    "plugin:react/recommended",
    "plugin:react-hooks/recommended",
  ],
  settings: {
    react: {
      version: "detect",
    },
  },
  rules: {
    "no-debugger": "off",
    "no-console": "off",
    "no-unused-vars": "warn",
    "react/prop-types": "warn",
  },
};
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Babel config is stored in babel.config.js:

// frontend/babel.config.js
module.exports = {
  presets: ["@babel/preset-env", "@babel/preset-react"],
};
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Webpack config for dev environment stored in webpack.config.dev.js:

// frontend/webpack.config.dev.js
const webpack = require("webpack");
const path = require("path");
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require("html-webpack-plugin");

process.env.NODE_ENV = "development";

module.exports = {
  mode: "development",
  target: "web",
  devtool: "cheap-module-source-map",
  entry: ["babel-polyfill", "./src/index"],
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname),
    publicPath: "/",
    filename: "bundle.js",
  },
  devServer: {
    historyApiFallback: true,
    headers: { "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*" },
    https: false,
  },
  plugins: [
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      "process.env.API_URL": JSON.stringify("http://localhost:8000/api/"),
    }),
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
      template: "./src/index.html",
      favicon: "./src/favicon.ico",
    }),
  ],
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.(js|jsx)$/,
        exclude: /node_modules/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: "babel-loader",
          },
          "eslint-loader",
        ],
      },
      {
        test: /(\.css)$/,
        use: ["style-loader", "css-loader"],
      },
    ],
  },
};
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And edit package.json scripts section to make it look like this:

// frontend/package.json
{
  "name": "djact",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Django + React",
  "scripts": {
    "start:dev": "webpack-dev-server --config webpack.config.dev.js --port 3000",
    "clean:build": "rimraf ../static && mkdir ../static",
    "prebuild": "run-p clean:build",
    "build": "webpack --config webpack.config.prod.js",
    "postbuild": "rimraf ../static/index.html"
  },
  "main": "index.js",
  "author": "Constantine",
  "license": "MIT",
  "dependencies": {
    ...
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    ...
  }
}
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Now let's add a directory for the frontend sources: mkdir -p src/components. Also create entry point for React - touch src/index.js, with the following content:

// frontend/src/index.js
import React from "react";
import { render } from "react-dom";
import { BrowserRouter as Router } from "react-router-dom";
import App from "./components/App";

render(
  <Router>
    <App />
  </Router>,
  document.getElementById("app")
);
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Create html template - touch src/index.html:

<!-- frontend/src/index.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <title>Djact</title>
  </head>

  <body>
    <div id="app"></div>
  </body>
</html>
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You can add a favicon inside src directory if you're fancy.

Then create the App component - touch src/components/App.js. Make it return something simple:

// frontend/src/components/App.js
import React from "react";

function App() {
  return <h1>Hello from React!</h1>;
}

export default App;
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We can now test that our app is working with yarn start:dev. After navigating to http://localhost:3000 we should see a "Hello from React!" greeting!

And here is a production webpack.config.prod.js:

// frontend/webpack.config.prod.js
const webpack = require("webpack");
const path = require("path");
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require("html-webpack-plugin");
const MiniCssExtractPlugin = require("mini-css-extract-plugin");

process.env.NODE_ENV = "production";

module.exports = {
  mode: "production",
  target: "web",
  devtool: "source-map",
  entry: {
    vendor: ["react", "react-dom", "prop-types"],
    bundle: ["babel-polyfill", "./src/index"],
  },
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, "../static"),
    publicPath: "/",
    filename: "[name].[contenthash].js",
  },
  plugins: [
    new MiniCssExtractPlugin({
      filename: "[name].[contenthash].css",
    }),
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      // This global makes sure React is built in prod mode.
      "process.env.NODE_ENV": JSON.stringify(process.env.NODE_ENV),
      "process.env.API_URL": JSON.stringify("http://localhost:8000/api/"),
    }),
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
      template: "src/index.html",
      favicon: "./src/favicon.ico",
      minify: {
        // see https://github.com/kangax/html-minifier#options-quick-reference
        removeComments: true,
        collapseWhitespace: true,
        removeRedundantAttributes: true,
        useShortDoctype: true,
        removeEmptyAttributes: true,
        removeStyleLinkTypeAttributes: true,
        keepClosingSlash: true,
        minifyJS: true,
        minifyCSS: true,
        minifyURLs: true,
      },
    }),
  ],
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.(js|jsx)$/,
        exclude: /node_modules/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: "babel-loader",
          },
          "eslint-loader",
        ],
      },
      {
        test: /(\.css)$/,
        use: [
          MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader,
          {
            loader: "css-loader",
            options: {
              sourceMap: true,
            },
          },
          {
            loader: "postcss-loader",
            options: {
              plugins: () => [require("cssnano")],
              sourceMap: true,
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};
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Now we can yarn build and see our bundled file in static directory. And if we start our Django app via python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000 we would see exactly the same thing but running in production mode.

Our project directory should look like this:

.
├── djact
│   ├── apps
│   │   ├── authentication
│   │   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── migrations
│   │   │   │   ├── 0001_initial.py
│   │   │   │   └── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── models.py
│   │   │   ├── serializers.py
│   │   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   │   └── views.py
│   │   └── core
│   │       ├── admin.py
│   │       ├── apps.py
│   │       ├── __init__.py
│   │       ├── migrations
│   │       │   └── __init__.py
│   │       ├── templates
│   │       │   └── index.html
│   │       ├── templatetags
│   │       │   ├── __init__.py
│   │       │   └── load_react.py
│   │       └── urls.py
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── db.sqlite3
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings
│   │   ├── dev.py
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── .env
├── .env.example
├── frontend
│   ├── babel.config.js
│   ├── package.json
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── components
│   │   │   └── App.js
│   │   ├── favicon.ico
│   │   ├── index.html
│   │   └── index.js
│   ├── webpack.config.dev.js
│   ├── webpack.config.prod.js
│   └── yarn.lock
├── log
│   └── django.log
├── manage.py
├── public
│   ├── media
│   └── static
├── requirements.txt
└── static
    ├── bundle.76ba356d74f1017eda2f.js
    ├── bundle.76ba356d74f1017eda2f.js.map
    ├── favicon.ico
    ├── vendor.9245c714f84f4bbf6bdc.js
    └── vendor.9245c714f84f4bbf6bdc.js.map
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API service

Inside components directory create axiosApi.js:

// frontend/src/components/api/axiosApi.js
import axios from "axios";

const baseURL = process.env.API_URL;
const accessToken = localStorage.getItem("access_token");

const axiosAPI = axios.create({
  baseURL: baseURL,
  timeout: 5000,
  headers: {
    Authorization: accessToken ? "JWT " + accessToken : null,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    accept: "application/json",
  },
});

axiosAPI.interceptors.response.use(
  (response) => response,
  async (error) => {
    const originalRequest = error.config;

    // Prevent infinite loops
    if (
      error.response.status === 401 &&
      originalRequest.url === baseURL + "token/refresh/"
    ) {
      window.location.href = "/login/";
      return Promise.reject(error);
    }

    if (
      error.response.status === 401 &&
      error.response.statusText === "Unauthorized"
    ) {
      const refresh = localStorage.getItem("refresh_token");

      if (refresh) {
        const tokenParts = JSON.parse(atob(refresh.split(".")[1]));

        // exp date in token is expressed in seconds, while now() returns milliseconds:
        const now = Math.ceil(Date.now() / 1000);

        if (tokenParts.exp > now) {
          try {
            const response = await axiosAPI.post("/token/refresh/", {
              refresh,
            });
            setNewHeaders(response);
            originalRequest.headers["Authorization"] =
              "JWT " + response.data.access;
            return axiosAPI(originalRequest);
          } catch (error) {
            console.log(error);
          }
        } else {
          console.log("Refresh token is expired", tokenParts.exp, now);
          window.location.href = "/login/";
        }
      } else {
        console.log("Refresh token not available.");
        window.location.href = "/login/";
      }
    }

    // specific error handling done elsewhere
    return Promise.reject(error);
  }
);

export function setNewHeaders(response) {
  axiosAPI.defaults.headers["Authorization"] = "JWT " + response.data.access;
  localStorage.setItem("access_token", response.data.access);
  localStorage.setItem("refresh_token", response.data.refresh);
}

export default axiosAPI;
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And authenticationApi.js:

// frontend/src/components/api/authenticationApi.js
import axiosAPI, { setNewHeaders } from "./axiosApi";

export async function signUp(email, username, password) {
  const response = await axiosAPI.post("users/create/", {
    email,
    username,
    password,
  });
  localStorage.setItem("user", response.data);
  return response;
}

export async function obtainToken(username, password) {
  const response = await axiosAPI.post("token/obtain/", {
    username,
    password,
  });
  setNewHeaders(response);
  return response;
}

export async function refreshToken(refresh) {
  const response = await axiosAPI.post("token/refresh/", {
    refresh,
  });
  setNewHeaders(response);
  return response;
}

// eslint-disable-next-line
export async function logout(accessToken) {
  localStorage.removeItem("access_token");
  localStorage.removeItem("refresh_token");
  // TODO: invalidate token on backend
}

export const isAuthenticated = () => {
  const token = localStorage.getItem("access_token");
  return !!token;
};
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Redux

First create redux directory under djact/frontend/src/ and put following files there:

// frontend/src/redux/configureStore.dev.js
import { createStore, applyMiddleware, compose } from "redux";
import rootReducer from "./reducers";
import reduxImmutableStateInvariant from "redux-immutable-state-invariant";
import thunk from "redux-thunk";

export default function configureStore(initialState) {
  const composeEnhancers =
    window.__REDUX_DEVTOOLS_EXTENSION_COMPOSE__ || compose; // add support for Redux dev tools

  return createStore(
    rootReducer,
    initialState,
    composeEnhancers(applyMiddleware(thunk, reduxImmutableStateInvariant()))
  );
}
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// frontend/src/redux/configureStore.prod.js
import { createStore, applyMiddleware } from "redux";
import rootReducer from "./reducers";
import thunk from "redux-thunk";

export default function configureStore(initialState) {
  return createStore(rootReducer, initialState, applyMiddleware(thunk));
}
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// frontend/src/redux/configureStore.js
// Use CommonJS require below so we can dynamically import during build-time.
if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "production") {
  module.exports = require("./configureStore.prod");
} else {
  module.exports = require("./configureStore.dev");
}
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Store is configured, now to actions! Create actions directory inside redux with following files:

// frontend/src/redux/actions/types.js
export const LOGIN_USER_SUCCESS = "LOGIN_USER_SUCCESS";
export const LOGOUT_USER = "LOGOUT_USER";
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// frontend/src/redux/actions/auth.js
import { LOGIN_USER_SUCCESS, LOGOUT_USER } from "./types";
import { obtainToken, logout } from "../../components/api/authenticationApi";

export function loginUserSuccess(token) {
  return { type: LOGIN_USER_SUCCESS, token };
}

export function loginUser(username, password) {
  return async function (dispatch) {
    try {
      const response = await obtainToken(username, password);
      dispatch(loginUserSuccess(response.data.access));
    } catch (error) {
      console.log("Error obtaining token. " + error);
    }
  };
}

export function logoutUserSuccess() {
  return { type: LOGOUT_USER };
}

export function logoutUser() {
  return async function (dispatch) {
    await logout();
    dispatch(logoutUserSuccess());
  };
}
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And the final step for redux is reducers themself, inside frontend/src/redux/reducers directory.

// frontend/src/redux/reducers/initialState.js
export default {
  accessToken: localStorage.getItem("access_token"),
};
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// frontend/src/redux/reducers/auth.js
import * as types from "../actions/types";
import initialState from "./initialState";

export default function authReducer(state = initialState.accessToken, action) {
  switch (action.type) {
    case types.LOGIN_USER_SUCCESS:
      return action.token;
    case types.LOGOUT_USER:
      return "";
    default:
      return state;
  }
}
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// frontend/src/redux/reducers/index.js
import { combineReducers } from "redux";
import auth from "./auth";

const rootReducer = combineReducers({
  auth,
});

export default rootReducer;
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Now we need to register everything in index.js:

// frontend/src/index.js
import React from "react";
import {render} from "react-dom";
import {BrowserRouter as Router} from "react-router-dom";
import {Provider as ReduxProvider} from "react-redux";

import App from "./components/App";
import configureStore from "./redux/configureStore";

const store = configureStore();

render(
  <ReduxProvider store={store}>
    <Router>
      <App/>
    </Router>
  </ReduxProvider>,
  document.getElementById("app")
);
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Components

Authentication

We have our reducers ready and now we need to put them to use. So let's create authentication dir inside frontend/src/components and put the next three files there.

This is will be our wrapper for private routes:

// frontend/src/components/authentication/PrivateRoute.js
import React from "react";
import { Redirect, Route } from "react-router-dom";
import PropTypes from "prop-types";
import { isAuthenticated } from "../api/authenticationApi";

const PrivateRoute = ({ component: Component, ...rest }) => (
  <Route
    {...rest}
    render={(props) =>
      isAuthenticated() ? (
        <Component {...props} />
      ) : (
        <Redirect
          to={{ pathname: "/login", state: { from: props.location } }}
        />
      )
    }
  />
);

PrivateRoute.propTypes = {
  component: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
  location: PropTypes.object,
};

export default PrivateRoute;
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// frontend/src/components/authentication/LoginPage.js
import React, { useState } from "react";
import { connect } from "react-redux";
import PropTypes from "prop-types";
import { loginUser } from "../../redux/actions/auth";

const LoginPage = ({ loginUser, history }) => {
  const [state, setState] = useState({
    username: "",
    password: "",
  });

  const handleChange = (event) => {
    const { name, value } = event.target;
    setState({ ...state, [name]: value });
  };

  const login = async (event) => {
    event.preventDefault();
    const { username, password } = state;

    await loginUser(username, password);
    history.push("/");
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Login page</h1>
      <form onSubmit={login}>
        <label>
          Username:
          <input
            name="username"
            type="text"
            value={state.username}
            onChange={handleChange}
          />
        </label>
        <label>
          Password:
          <input
            name="password"
            type="password"
            value={state.password}
            onChange={handleChange}
          />
        </label>
        <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
      </form>
    </div>
  );
};

LoginPage.propTypes = {
  loginUser: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
  history: PropTypes.object.isRequired,
};

const mapDispatchToProps = {
  loginUser,
};

export default connect(null, mapDispatchToProps)(LoginPage);
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And the Sign Up component will be simple because I was lazy to implement this but it should be easy enough:

// frontend/src/components/authentication/SignUpPage.js
import React from "react";
import { useHistory } from "react-router-dom";

const SignUpPage = () => {
  const history = useHistory();

  const handleClick = () => {
    history.push("/");
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Sign Up page</h1>
      <button onClick={handleClick}>sign up</button>
    </div>
  );
};

export default SignUpPage;
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Common

Common components will contain only Header. But in theory there could live everything.. you know.. common.

// frontend/src/components/common/Header.js
import React from "react";
import { connect } from "react-redux";
import PropTypes from "prop-types";
import { NavLink, useHistory } from "react-router-dom";
import { logoutUser } from "../../redux/actions/auth";

const Header = ({ accessToken, logoutUser }) => {
  const history = useHistory();

  const handleLogout = async () => {
    await logoutUser();
    history.push("login/");
  };

  return (
    <nav>
      {accessToken ? (
        <>
          <NavLink to="/">Profile</NavLink>
          {" | "}
          <NavLink to="/logout" onClick={handleLogout}>
            Logout
          </NavLink>
        </>
      ) : (
        <>
          <NavLink to="/login">Login</NavLink>
          {" | "}
          <NavLink to="/sign-up">SignUp</NavLink>
        </>
      )}
    </nav>
  );
};

Header.propTypes = {
  accessToken: PropTypes.string,
  logoutUser: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
};

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return {
    accessToken: state.auth,
  };
}

const mapDispatchToProps = {
  logoutUser,
};

export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(Header);
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Core

And the final piece is core components with application logic. Here we'll have our protected page:

// frontend/src/components/core/ProfilePage.js
import React from "react";
import axiosAPI from "../api/axiosApi";

const ProfilePage = () => {
  const handleClick = async () => {
    const response = await axiosAPI.get("protected/");
    alert(JSON.stringify(response.data));
  };
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Profile page</h1>
      <p>Only logged in users should see this</p>
      <button onClick={handleClick}>GET protected</button>
    </div>
  );
};

export default ProfilePage;
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Last thing to do is to update our App.js:

// frontend/src/components/App.js
import React from "react";
import {Route, Switch} from "react-router-dom";

import PageNotFound from "./PageNotFound";
import Header from "./common/Header";
import ProfilePage from "./core/ProfilePage";
import PrivateRoute from "./authentication/PrivateRoute";
import LoginPage from "./authentication/LoginPage";
import SignUpPage from "./authentication/SignUpPage";

function App() {
  return (
    <>
      <Header/>
      <Switch>
        <PrivateRoute exact path="/" component={ProfilePage}/>
        <Route path="/login" component={LoginPage}/>
        <Route path="/sign-up" component={SignUpPage}/>
        <Route component={PageNotFound}/>
      </Switch>
    </>
  );
}

export default App;
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Our final project structure should look like this:

.
├── blogpost.md
├── djact
│   ├── apps
│   │   ├── authentication
│   │   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── migrations
│   │   │   │   ├── 0001_initial.py
│   │   │   │   └── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── models.py
│   │   │   ├── serializers.py
│   │   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   │   └── views.py
│   │   └── core
│   │       ├── admin.py
│   │       ├── apps.py
│   │       ├── __init__.py
│   │       ├── migrations
│   │       │   └── __init__.py
│   │       ├── templates
│   │       │   └── index.html
│   │       ├── templatetags
│   │       │   ├── __init__.py
│   │       │   └── load_react.py
│   │       └── urls.py
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── db.sqlite3
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings
│   │   ├── dev.py
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── .env
├── .env.example
├── frontend
│   ├── babel.config.js
│   ├── package.json
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── components
│   │   │   ├── api
│   │   │   │   ├── authenticationApi.js
│   │   │   │   └── axiosApi.js
│   │   │   ├── App.js
│   │   │   ├── authentication
│   │   │   │   ├── LoginPage.js
│   │   │   │   ├── PrivateRoute.js
│   │   │   │   └── SignUpPage.js
│   │   │   ├── common
│   │   │   │   └── Header.js
│   │   │   ├── core
│   │   │   │   └── ProfilePage.js
│   │   │   └── PageNotFound.js
│   │   ├── favicon.ico
│   │   ├── index.html
│   │   ├── index.js
│   │   └── redux
│   │       ├── actions
│   │       │   ├── auth.js
│   │       │   └── types.js
│   │       ├── configureStore.dev.js
│   │       ├── configureStore.js
│   │       ├── configureStore.prod.js
│   │       └── reducers
│   │           ├── auth.js
│   │           ├── index.js
│   │           └── initialState.js
│   ├── webpack.config.dev.js
│   ├── webpack.config.prod.js
│   ├── yarn-error.log
│   └── yarn.lock
├── log
│   └── django.log
├── manage.py
├── public
│   ├── media
│   └── static
├── requirements.txt
└── static
    ├── bundle.c86ace9a42dd5bd70a59.js
    ├── bundle.c86ace9a42dd5bd70a59.js.map
    ├── favicon.ico
    ├── vendor.0d40e04c29796a70dc89.js
    └── vendor.0d40e04c29796a70dc89.js.map
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Running

Now, set environment variables export $(cat .env | xargs). Build the frontend part cd frontend && yarn:build. Create superuser for testing with cd ../ && python manage.py createsuperuser and follow instructions. Run Django app python manage.py runserver and navigate to http://localhost:8000. We should see our login page. Enter credentials you provided when created superuser and we'll get to a protected Profile page. If we click on a GET protected button we would see the alert with response from the server.

And that's it! If you're came all the way down here.. wow! And if you've actually implemented all of this.. WOW!! Outstanding job, my friend! Hope you've learned new things or solved a problem of yours 🚀

Thank you and happy coding!

Resources

As I promised at the beginning of this article, here is a list of every resource that helped me to build this whole thing:

PluralSight courses:

Articles:

Top comments (10)

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faisalnazik profile image
Info Comment hidden by post author - thread only accessible via permalink
Faisal Nazik •

can you solve this problem I'm stuck with this little project. need your help guys. I asked the question on StackOverflow with full details. stackoverflow.com/questions/692562...

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matthewekeller profile image
matthewekeller •

Hi Constantine. I am very excited about Django because I have similar experiences to yours with the new heavy js client side frameworks. I wrote a SPA framework that is designed to compliment server side rendering of HTML and since Django templates seem very similar to JSP I think it might work great along side it. Check it out if you like.

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hussainislam profile image
Md. Hussainul Islam Sajib •

I think when you are creating 'core' app rather than using the 'createapp' you meant 'startapp'.

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c_v_ya profile image
Constantine •

Good catch, thank you!

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belonesox profile image
Stas Fomin • • Edited

Thank you, I am new on React+Django.

But how this JWT auth can be easily used for django admin («/admin»)?

In your sample django admin ignores JWT and ask for classic authorization.

Collapse
 
c_v_ya profile image
Constantine •

Glad if it helped!

Well, default admin doesn't work with React, it's a static html rendering. So you could write your own admin panel to interact with React. Or just disable default admin if you don't want/need this functionality. It simply wasn't the scope of my attempt at Django + React and of this article.

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belonesox profile image
Stas Fomin •

«Free»/«Nocode» admin panel Django almost generated from Django Model, is
one of the great arguments to use Django for SPA.
And I dont see any alternative to get «free» admin panel
from pure DB model (for example React-Admin from marmalade also need lot of boilerplate code
to work with some DB/Graphql model).

So combination of «free and little ugly» Django Admin panel for all DB objects and some SPA for UI that need good UX looks promising.

And I see stackoverflow.com/questions/496790... that this (JWT auth for admin)
should theoretically work.
But I tried this («copy-paste from SO») and this not worked directly…

May be you, Django Master, can look at this?

Thread Thread
 
c_v_ya profile image
Constantine •

😄 I'm far away from the "master", but thank you anyway.

At the first glance that should work, but the Important Note says about naive approach and not really suitable for production. So Idk, maybe it could be used as a base for some better decision. But I'd spend some time to think and try different approaches or use some strong google-fu to find ready-to-go solutions. Because that's an admin interface and you know.. you really want to play it safe rather than quick.

If/When I'll have enough time to test and come up with something I'll sure write about it. But right now I'm kinda short on free time, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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goatgitt profile image
goatgitt •

hey,
did you tried to update the code?
most of es-lint dependencies are depreciated.
I have this eror in python :AttributeError: 'tuple' object has no attribute 'startswith'
do you have a fix?
Best,

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c_v_ya profile image
Constantine •

Hi, not really. Things tend to update very quickly in our world. So there might be errors and you'll need to solve them. That's also a valuable skill for you.

When I'll have time I'll update the code base. But it might be tomorrow or a year later 🤷🏼‍♂️

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