Exaplaining Django Login and Logout. Django is a High-Level Web Framework and it has lots of built-in features. We can use those built-in functions for our common use of Web Application. Some of the functions are Permission and User Control, Signals, Templates, Django ORM, Access Control List, etc. Out of this Registration App, is a good example and a good thing about it is that the features can be used out-of-the-box.

With the Authentication Views, you can take advantage of the following features

  • Login
  • logout
  • User Registration
  • Change Password
  • Reset Password or Forgot Password

In this guide, we are going to focus on Login and Logout Feature. For Signup, Reset password and Change password check the bellow tutorials –

Getting Started – Project Setup

Before we begin, ensure you’ve got django.contrib.auth in your INSTALLED_APPS and authentication middleware is properly configured in the MIDDLEWARE settings.

Both come already configured when you start a new Django project using the command startproject.

In case you’re beginning a brand new project simply to follow this tutorial. Create a user using the terminal, so that you can test your login logout pages.

python3 manage.py createsuperuser

Now we need to set the template directory in the settings.py file. In your TEMPLATES add the template directory path 'DIRS': [BASE_DIR + '/templates/',],:

TEMPLATES = [    
    {
     ...
     'DIRS': [BASE_DIR + '/templates/',],
     ...
    },
]
<!-- base.html -->
<html>
    <head>
        <title>{% block title %}{% endblock title %}</title>
        {% block css %} {% endblock css %}
    </head>
    <body>
        <!-- <h1>Built-In User Registeration / Authentication App</h1> -->

        {% block content %} {% endblock content %}

        {% block javascript %} {% endblock javascript %}
    </body>
</html>

Now we have setup our requirements. Lets get started

Configure the Django Authentication URL Routes

In your urls.py file, import django.contrib.auth.views module and add the URLconf for Login and Logout.

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path

from django.contrib.auth import views as auth_views

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),

    # Login and Logout
    path('login/', auth_views.LoginView.as_view(), name='login'),
    path('logout/', auth_views.LogoutView.as_view(), name='logout'),
]

Create a Django Login Template & Form

By default, LoginView will try to render registration/login.html. So in your templates folder, create a registration folder and inside that create login.html file.

{% extends 'base.html' %}

{% block title %}Login Page{% endblock title %}

{% block content %} 
    <h2>Login</h2>
    <form method="post">
        {% csrf_token %}
        {{ form.as_p }}
        <button type="submit">Login</button>
    </form>
{% endblock content %}
How to use Built-In Login and Logout System of Django

This simple example, has the ability to validate username and password and authenticate user.

Customize the Django Login View

We can pass some parameters to LoginView, which will help us to have more control over the URL and change the behavior of the view.

Suppose you want the login.html template somewhere else than registration/login.html. For that, you need to pass template name in LoginView.

path('login/', auth_views.LoginView.as_view(
        template_name='commons/login.html'
        ), 
        name='login'
    ),

After a successful login, we need the redirect to the next page. We can set that next page in settings.py by adding the below code –

LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = 'home'

If we do not set login redirect URL, it will take to default URL /accounts/profile/ which will give TemplateDoesNotExist error.

We can also redirect a user who is already authenticated by setting redirect_authenticated_user parameter to true. ( loginview.as_view, edirect_authenticated_user, auth_views.loginview )

path('login/', auth_views.LoginView.as_view(
        redirect_authenticated_user=True, 
        template_name='commons/login.html'
        ), 
        name='login'
    ),

Customize the Django Logout View

If you need to redirect to a template after logout, you can set the template name in LogoutView like this – 

path('logout/', auth_views.LogoutView.as_view(
        template_name='commons/logout.html'
        ), 
        name='logout'
    ),

And if you want to redirect to a URL after logout, you can set the next page in LogoutView like this –

path('logout/', auth_views.LogoutView.as_view(
        next_page='home'
        ), 
        name='logout'
    ),

Or in settings.py file add the Logout Redirect URL.

LOGOUT_REDIRECT_URL = 'home'

Note – home is URL name. You can keep it as you want.

# urls.py
...
from django.views.generic import TemplateView

urlpatterns = [
  ...
  path('', TemplateView.as_view(template_name='home.html'), name='home'), 
]
<!-- home.html -->
{% extends 'base.html' %}

{% block title %}Home Page{% endblock title %}

{% block content %} 
    <h2>Home</h2>
    {% if user.is_authenticated %}
    <p>You are welcome on Home Page</p>
    <p>Your name is - {{user.first_name}} {{user.last_name}}</p>
    <p>Your email is - {{user.email}}</p>
    <br><br>
    <a href="{% url 'logout' %}">Logout</a>
    {% else %}
    <a href="{% url 'login' %}">Login</a>
    {% endif %}
{% endblock content %}

Take a look to official document – here

GitHub – Run Example Locally

Code is also available on GitHub – https://github.com/studygyaan/How-to-use-Built-In-Login-and-Logout-Authentication-System-in-Django

Clone the Repository 

git clone https://github.com/studygyaan/How-to-use-Built-In-Login-and-Logout-Authentication-System-in-Django.git

Change Directory

cd How-to-use-Built-In-Login-and-Logout-Authentication-System-in-Django

Create Virtual Environment – VirtualENV

virtualenv env

Activate Virtual Environment

source env/bin/activate

Run requirements file to install libraries using Pip3

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Run the server

python3 manage.py runserver

And open http://localhost:8000/ in your browser.