JWT Authentication with Django REST Framework

JSON Web Token is an open standard for securely transferring data within parties using a JSON object. JWT is used for stateless authentication mechanisms for users and providers, this means maintaining session is on the client-side instead of storing sessions on the server. Here, we will implement the JWT authentication system in Django.

Modules required :

• django : Django Installation
• djangorestframework_simplejwt :

  pip install djangorestframework_simplejwt

Basic setup :

Start a project by the following command –

 django-admin startproject config

Change directory to project config –

 cd config

Start the server- Start the server by typing following command in terminal –

 python manage.py runserver

To check whether the server is running or not go to a web browser and enter http://127.0.0.1:8000/ as URL.

Now stop the server by pressing

ctrl-c

Let’s create an app now called the “app”.

python manage.py startapp app

adding configuration to settings.py file :

open settings.py file in config folder and add configuration.

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework_simplejwt.authentication.JWTAuthentication',
    ],
}

edit urls.py file
open urls.py in config folder

from django.urls import path, include
from rest_framework_simplejwt import views as jwt_views

urlpatterns = [
    path('api/token/',
         jwt_views.TokenObtainPairView.as_view(),
         name ='token_obtain_pair'),
    path('api/token/refresh/',
         jwt_views.TokenRefreshView.as_view(),
         name ='token_refresh'),
    path('', include('app.urls')),
]

edit views.py
open views.py in app folder and make a API view

from rest_framework.views import APIView
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.permissions import IsAuthenticated


class HelloView(APIView):
    permission_classes = (IsAuthenticated, )

    def get(self, request):
        content = {'message': 'Hello, GeeksforGeeks'}
        return Response(content)

edit urls.py
create a urls.py in app folder and edit it

from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('hello/', views.HelloView.as_view(), name ='hello'),
]

Usage :

To make an HTTP request we have used HTTPie, to install it.

$ sudo apt install httpie

Step 1 :
migrate project, create a superuser and runserver

$ python3 manage.py migrate

$ python manage.py createsuperuser

$ python manage.py runserver 4000

Step 2 :
Now, we need to authenticate and obtain the token. which we will get at endpoint is
/api/token/

$ http post http://127.0.0.1:4000/api/token/ username=spider password=vinayak

add your user name and password

Step 3 :
copy access token and make a request

$  http http://127.0.0.1:4000/hello/ "Authorization: Bearer eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJ0b2tlbl90eXBlIjoiYWNjZXNzIiwiZXhwIjoxNTg3Mjc5NDIxLCJqdGkiOiIzYWMwNDgzOTY3NjE0ZDgxYmFjMjBiMTBjMDlkMmYwOCIsInVzZXJfaWQiOjF9.qtNrUpyPQI8W2K2T22NhcgVZGFTyLN1UL7uqJ0KnF0Y"