Question

I wrote a custom backend for my application to process logins in a sort-of unique way, as I have specific needs for this project. Here’s my backend:

from my.project.models import User 
from hashlib import sha512

class MyBackend:

    def authenticate(self, email_address=None, password=None):
        print "Trying to auth: " + email_address

        try: 
            user = User.objects.get(email_address=email_address)
            password = sha512(password + user.password_salt).hexdigest()

            if user.password != password:
                return None
            else:
                return user
        except User.DoesNotExist:
            return None

    def get_user(self, user_id):
        try:
            return User.objects.get(pk=user_id)
        except User.DoesNotExist:
            return None

Here’s my User class:

class User(models.Model):
    email_address = models.EmailAddressField()
    password = models.CharField(max_length=128)
    password_salt = models.CharField(max_length=128)

It’s pretty simple, but I’ve already built the rest of my models around this ‘User’ class.

Is there a way to make this work so as to have the best of both worlds, or should I ditch this approach and just use Django’s built-in model for users?

Answer 1

Extending the user can best be done by using user profiles.
Define a user profile-model and at the bottom, add something like this:

User.profile = property(lambda u: Profile.objects.get_or_create(user=u)[0])

I think this approach might be better than replacing the User-model