Like userena with Django tracking if the user is logged in?

Question

In the normal course of dealing with a Django user, you should save the session for the user after he logs in. However, after reading the userena views.py file for login, I could not see how the user was being tracked, so as soon as they log in, the site will now log in. I put the code from userena below:

def signin(request, auth_form=AuthenticationForm, template_name='userena/signin_form.html', redirect_field_name=REDIRECT_FIELD_NAME, redirect_signin_function=signin_redirect, extra_context=None): """ Signin using email or username with password. Signs a user in by combining email/username with password. If the combination is correct and the user :func:`is_active` the :func:`redirect_signin_function` is called with the arguments ``REDIRECT_FIELD_NAME`` and an instance of the :class:`User` whois is trying the login. The returned value of the function will be the URL that is redirected to. A user can also select to be remembered for ``USERENA_REMEMBER_DAYS``. :param auth_form: Form to use for signing the user in. Defaults to the :class:`AuthenticationForm` supplied by userena. :param template_name: String defining the name of the template to use. Defaults to ``userena/signin_form.html``. :param redirect_field_name: Form field name which contains the value for a redirect to the successing page. Defaults to ``next`` and is set in ``REDIRECT_FIELD_NAME`` setting. :param redirect_signin_function: Function which handles the redirect. This functions gets the value of ``REDIRECT_FIELD_NAME`` and the :class:`User` who has logged in. It must return a string which specifies the URI to redirect to. :param extra_context: A dictionary containing extra variables that should be passed to the rendered template. The ``form`` key is always the ``auth_form``. **Context** ``form`` Form used for authentication supplied by ``auth_form``. """ form = auth_form if request.method == 'POST': form = auth_form(request.POST, request.FILES) if form.is_valid(): identification, password, remember_me = (form.cleaned_data['identification'], form.cleaned_data['password'], form.cleaned_data['remember_me']) user = authenticate(identification=identification, password=password) if user.is_active: login(request, user) if remember_me: request.session.set_expiry(userena_settings.USERENA_REMEMBER_ME_DAYS[1] * 86400) else: request.session.set_expiry(0) if userena_settings.USERENA_USE_MESSAGES: messages.success(request, _('You have been signed in.'), fail_silently=True) # Whereto now? redirect_to = redirect_signin_function( request.REQUEST.get(redirect_field_name), user) return redirect(redirect_to) else: return redirect(reverse('userena_disabled', kwargs={'username': user.username})) if not extra_context: extra_context = dict() extra_context.update({ 'form': form, 'next': request.REQUEST.get(redirect_field_name), }) return ExtraContextTemplateView.as_view(template_name=template_name, extra_context=extra_context)(request) 

Answer 1

The user is first authenticated using

user = authenticate (authentication = authentication, password = password)

which can be found here https://github.com/django/django/blob/master/django/contrib/auth/backends.py This method checks to see if the user exists and checks the password is correct.

If all goes well, the login method is called

login (request, user)

which can be found here https://github.com/django/django/blob/master/django/contrib/auth/views.py

As you can see, these are two methods that ship with Django and act as the default collation for Django.

Your site knows that the user is logged in because you are likely to use Middleware (specifically SessionMiddleware and AuthenticationMiddleware), which attach the request and user object to the request. The above registration method saves the user ID for the session.

See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/#authentication-in-web-requests for more details

---

Regarding your comment:

You can display your template using RequestContext or return your TemplateResponse views. See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/template-response/#using-templateresponse-and-simpletemplateresponse

This passes the user object to the template processor. Then in your template you can do something like this:

 {% if user.is_authenticated %} <p>Welcome {{ user.first_name }}</p> {% else %} <p>Please log in</p> {% endif %} 

Also see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/#id8

In my opinion, it’s really very convenient to put a modified version of this in your base.html. For example, to show the login button if the user is not logged in, and replace it with the button that displays the user on his profile page when the user is logged in.