Built-in Authentication & User Customization

🐍 DjangoLesson 9Intermediate

Django ships with a complete user authentication system. Extending it with a custom User model is recommended for all production projects.

1 Custom User Model Setup

Python — models.py

from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser
from django.db import models

class CustomUser(AbstractUser):
    bio = models.TextField(max_length=500, blank=True)
    birth_date = models.DateField(null=True, blank=True)
    avatar = models.ImageField(upload_to="avatars/", null=True, blank=True)

# Configure this in settings.py:
# AUTH_USER_MODEL = "users.CustomUser"

2 Auth Views & Decorators

Python — views.py

from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from django.shortcuts import render

@login_required(login_url="login")
def dashboard_view(request):
    return render(request, "dashboard.html", {"user": request.user})

3 Code Challenge

Challenge: Write a custom middleware that redirects users who have not verified their email addresses to a specific registration page.