Django REST API with JWT Authentication (Authentication API)

We're going to take you step-by-step to build a fully functional open-source JWT Authentication REST API using Python, Django Rest Framework.

Prerequisites

1. Python==3.9.5 or Greater
2. Django==4.2.6 or Greater
3. djangorestframework==3.14.0
4. PyJWT==2.7.0

You can view all the dependencies from the requirements.txt file.

Project Installation Instructions

1. Navigate to your workspace and create a virtual environment with python -m venv env

2. Activate the virtual environment

   • Linux: Activate the virtual environment run: source .env/bin/activate

   • Windows: Activate the virtual environment run: env\Scipts\activate

3. Install the following project dependencies run:

        pip install Django==4.2.6
        pip install djangorestframework==3.14.0
        pip install PyJWT==2.7.0

4. After the installation is complete let's create our django project, we are going to call our project core run: django-admin startproject core. Let’s look at what startproject created:

       core/
       manage.py
       core/
           __init__.py
           settings.py
           urls.py
           asgi.py
           wsgi.py

5. After the creation of the project, let's create an app called users. First you need to cd to the created project which is named core and run: django-admin startapp users. The application will be created inside the Django project core. Let's look at the folder structure below.

           core/
           manage.py
           core/
               __init__.py
               settings.py
               urls.py
               asgi.py
               wsgi.py
           users/
               __init__.py
               admin.py
               apps.py
               migrations/
                   __init__.py
               models.py
               tests.py
               views.py

6. Navigate tosettings.py and update the following:

       INSTALLED_APPS = [
       'django.contrib.admin',
       'django.contrib.auth',
       'django.contrib.contenttypes',
       'django.contrib.sessions',
       'django.contrib.messages',
       'django.contrib.staticfiles',
       'rest_framework',  # NEW SET UP FOR DJANGO REST FRAMEWORK
       'users', # NEW ADD USERS APP IN THE INSTALLED APPS 
   ]
   
   # NEW ADD ALL OF THIS 
   REST_FRAMEWORK = {
       'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': [
           'users.authentication.backends.JWTAuthentication',
       ],
       'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
           'rest_framework.permissions.IsAuthenticated',
       ],
   }

7. Let's create a file in the following directory in the users app /users/authentication/backends.py. If you don't have the authentication/ you MUST create it and also in the authentication folder add __init__.py file to make the module accessible.

8. The following code implements the JWT middleware

9. Let's create our models in the user application

10. Let's create our managers in the user application

11. Let's Implement the serializers

12. Let's Implement the Views

13. Let's Implement the user app URLS and core URL

14. After that you need to run migrations to create the migration files run: python manage.py makemigrations

15. To apply the migrations and create the tables in the database run: python manage.py migrate

16. If you want to test the application you will find the tests at users/tests.py run tests: python manage.py tests

17. run the application manage.py runserver