Full Authentication System Tutorial Notes

Overview

• Building a full authentication system in Django.
• Features include: login, register, log out, and reset password.

Demo Walkthrough

1. Signing Up:

   • Input: Name (Jane Doe), Username (test user), Email (theprotonguy@yahoo.com), Password.
   • Register the user.

2. Login:

   • Validations for login credentials.
   • Incorrect password shows "invalid login credential."
   • Successful login redirects to homepage (only accessible if authenticated).

3. Logout:

   • Redirects back to the login page.
   • Cannot access homepage without logging back in.

4. Reset Password:

   • Input email associated with the account.
   • Validates if the email exists in the database.
   • If valid, sends a reset link via email within 10 minutes.
   • Invalid IDs or links redirect back to the reset password page.

Setting Up Django Project

1. Directory Structure:

   • Create a folder for the Django project (e.g., FullAuthentication).

2. Virtual Environment:

   • Use pip install pipenv to create a virtual environment.
   • Activate virtual environment with pipenv shell.

3. Install Django:

   • Run pip install django.

4. Create Django Project:

   • Run django-admin startproject authentication_project.

5. Create Core App:

   • Navigate to the project folder and run python manage.py startapp core.

Code Structure

1. Templates and Static Files:

   • Create a templates folder for HTML files.
   • Create a static folder for CSS/JS assets.

2. Register App and Templates in Settings:

   • Update settings.py to include the core app and template directory.

3. URLs Configuration:

   • Create urls.py in the core app for handling routes.
   • Include app URLs in the main project urls.py.

User Authentication Logic

1. Registration:

   • Collect user inputs (first name, last name, username, email, password).
   • Validate inputs (username and email uniqueness, password length).
   • Use User.objects.create_user() to create a user.
   • Use Django messages to show success/error prompts.

2. Login:

   • Authenticate users using authenticate() and login() methods.
   • Redirect authenticated users to homepage.
   • Show error message for invalid credentials.

3. Logout:

   • Create a logout view using logout() method.
   • Redirect users back to login after logging out.

4. Reset Password:

   • Create a view to handle password reset requests.
   • Generate a unique reset ID when a user requests to reset their password.
   • Send an email with the reset link (using Django's email capabilities).
   • Create views to handle reset link and password update.

Final Steps

• Ensure to test the entire authentication flow.
• Use tools like Postman to test API endpoints if needed.
• Generate a GitHub repository for the project code.

Additional Resources

• Links to Django documentation for further reading.
• Community links for discussions (Discord, Telegram).
• Code examples available in the GitHub repository.