Django-DRF-Boilerplate

A powerful Django and Django REST Framework boilerplate project that provides a solid foundation for building web applications with essential features and best practices of class-based views.
Minimal front-end has also been implemented in HTML, CSS and bootstrap for front-end testing.

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Features

• Custom User Model
  • Email-Based Authentication
• Authentication via Social Account
• JWT Authentication
• Account Activation
• Password Management
  • Reset Password via Email
  • Change Password using old password
• Profile Section

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Custom User Model

The default user model has been customized to exclude username and enforce email-based authentication, and it can be further customized to one's need. Add following lines in settings.py to use the custom model.

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'users.CustomUser'

ACCOUNT_USER_MODEL_USERNAME_FIELD = None
ACCOUNT_EMAIL_REQUIRED = True
ACCOUNT_USERNAME_REQUIRED = False
ACCOUNT_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD = 'email'

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Authentication via Social Account

For authentication via social accounts (Google and GitHub in this project) django-allauth is used. Add following apps in INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py to use django-allauth in your project and specify authentication backend.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # Other apps
    'allauth',
    'allauth.account',
    'allauth.socialaccount',
    'allauth.socialaccount.providers.google',
    'allauth.socialaccount.providers.github',
]

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',
    'allauth.account.auth_backends.AuthenticationBackend'
]

Define the scope and login redirect URL by adding following lines in settings.py.

SOCIAL_ACCOUNT_PROVIDERS = {
    'google': {
        'SCOPE': [
            'profile',
            'email'
        ],
        'AUTH_PARAMS': {
            'access_type': 'online'
        }
    }
}

LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = '/'

To connect social account of users already signed-up with the specified email rather than creating a new user, a custom adapter is used. Specify the path by adding following line in settings.py.

SOCIALACCOUNT_ADAPTER = 'users.allauth.adapters.CustomSocialAccountAdapter'

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JWT Authentication

Simple JWT has been used for JSON Web Token authentication backend for the Django REST Framework.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # Other apps
    'rest_framework_simplejwt',
]

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework_simplejwt.authentication.JWTAuthentication',
    ),
}

Specify the lifetime of the tokens.

from datetime import timedelta

SIMPLE_JWT = {
    'ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME': timedelta(minutes=60),
    'REFRESH_TOKEN_LIFETIME': timedelta(days=1),
}

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Account Activation

Activation via email has been integrated in the project. Set up SMTP server by adding following lines in settings.py to send email.

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'
EMAIL_HOST = 'smtp.gmail.com'
EMAIL_PORT = 587
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'email host user'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'email host password'

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Password Management

• Reset Password via Email

A reset link is sent to the user email address using the same SMTP server that we set up in the previous step. Specify the duration of the link by adding following line in settings.py.

PASSWORD_RESET_TIMEOUT = 7200  # 2 hour

• Change Password using Old Password

Changing the user password using old password has been implemented as well.

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Profile Section

User Profile section has also been implemented where users can edit their profile or look at others' profile via user handle.

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Connect PostgreSQL

We'll be using PostgreSQL for database management instead of django's built-in sqlite3.

DATABASES = {
   'default': {
       'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
       'NAME': 'database name',
       'USER': 'user associated with db',
       'PASSWORD': 'password',
       'HOST': 'host',
       'PORT': 'port',
   }
}

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Getting Started

Follow these steps to set up and run the project locally:

• Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/Fahad-Habib/Django-DRF-Boilerplate.git
cd Django-DRF-Boilerplate

• Install requirements

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

• Set up environment

Create a .env file in boilerplate directory following sample.env

• Run migrations

python manage.py migrate

• Start the server

python manage.py runserver