📧 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.

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.

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: user@mail.com
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: "user@gmail.com"
    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: "user@gmail.com"
    password: "MySecurePassword"
}

response:

{
    key: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}

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

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

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! 😃💻