Separate Admin/User authentication system in Django

Question

I've recently started learning/using django; I'm trying to figure out a way to have two separate authentications systems for administrators and users. Rather than create a whole new auth system, I'd like to leverage django's built-in functionality (i.e. session management, @login_required decorator, etc.).

Specifically, I want to have two separate login tables - one for admins, one for users. The admin login table should be the default table that django generates with its default fields (ie. id, username, email, is_staff, etc.). The user table, on the other hand, I want to have only 5 fields - id, email, password, first_name, last_name. Furthermore, I want to use django built-in session management for both login tables and the @login_required decorator for their respective views. Lastly, I want two separate and distinct login forms for admins and users.

Anyone have any suggestions on how I can achieve my goal or know of any articles/examples that could help me along?

Answer 1

Modify things slightly so that users have a category prefix on their username? You haven't given us much info on what you want to do, it's possible that your needs might be met by using the sites framework, or simply two separate django installs.

If what you're trying to do is make the user login page and the admin login page separate, just use the built in framework as detailed in the docs to create a "user" login page and leave the admin one alone. If you're worried that users will somehow start editing admin login stuff, don't be, they won't unless you let them.

Answer 2

You could potentially write one or more custom authentication backends. This is documented here. I have written a custom backend to authenticate against an LDAP server, for example.

Answer 3

If I understand your question correctly (and perhaps I don't), I think you're asking how to create a separate login form for non-admin users, while still using the standard Django authentication mechanisms, User model, etc. This is supported natively by Django through views in django.contrib.auth.views.

You want to start with django.contrib.auth.views.login. Add a line to your urlconf like so:

(r'^/login/$', 'django.contrib.auth.views.login', {'template_name': 'myapp/login.html'})

The login generic view accepts the template_name parameter, which is the path to your custom login template (there is a generic one you can use as well, provided by django.contrib.auth).

Full documentation on the login, logout, password_change, and other generic views are available in the Django Authentication Docs.