Django documentation

Authenticating against Django's user database from Apache

These docs are frozen for Django version 0.90. For current documentation, go here.

Since keeping multiple authentication databases in sync is a common problem when dealing with Apache, you can configuring Apache to authenticate against Django's authentication system directly. For example, you could:

  • Serve media files directly from Apache only to authenticated users.
  • Authenticate access to a Subversion repository against Django users with a certain permission.
  • Allow certain users to connect to a WebDAV share created with mod_dav.

Configuring Apache

To check against Django's authorization database from a Apache configuration file, you'll need to use mod_python's PythonAuthenHandler directive along with the standard Auth* and Require directives:

<Location /example/>
    AuthType basic
    AuthName "example.com"
    Require valid-user

    SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE mysite.settings
    PythonAuthenHandler django.contrib.auth.handlers.modpython
</Location>

By default, the authentication handler will limit access to the /example/ location to users marked as staff members. You can use a set of PythonOption directives to modify this behavior:

PythonOption Explanation
DjangoRequireStaffStatus

If set to on only "staff" users (i.e. those with the is_staff flag set) will be allowed.

Defaults to on.
DjangoRequireSuperuserStatus

If set to on only superusers (i.e. those with the is_superuser flag set) will be allowed.

Defaults to off.
DjangoPermissionName

The name of a permission to require for access. See custom permissions for more information.

By default no specific permission will be required.

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