Extending and customizing django-allauth in Python

Django-allauth is a powerful Django package that simplifies user authentication, registration, account management, and integration with social platforms like Google, Facebook, etc. It builds on Django’s built-in authentication system, providing a full suite of ready-to-use views and forms.

Prerequisite: Django-allauth setup and Configuration

Features of Django allauth:

• Allow users to sign up and log in using their email or username.
• Manage login/logout and email verification workflows.
• Add custom fields or logic to the registration process.
• Enable social logins with minimal configuration.

In this tutorial, we will set up a basic Django application that demonstrates how to use django-allauth for user authentication- covering login, logout, and signup functionality without using any custom templates.

Step 1: Create a Django Project and App

Create a new project and app, to learn about how to create and set it up, refer to:

Creating Django Project

Creating Django App

Suppose we created a project named form and an app inside it, named formapp.

Register formapp in settings.py so Django knows to include it in the project:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ... 
    
    'formapp',  # formapp registered here
]

Step 2: Install and Configure django-allauth

We install django-allauth to extend Django's authentication system with features like registration, login, logout, email verification, and social login. It provides prebuilt views and forms so we don't have to implement them manually.

Install it using the command:

pip install django-allauth

Add required apps to INSTALLED_APPS

We now add required apps that power the core features of django-allauth, including site management and social accounts.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'django.contrib.sites',  # Required by allauth to manage sites
    'allauth',               # Core allauth functionality
    'allauth.account',       # User account management (signup/login)
    'allauth.socialaccount', # For social login (optional)
    'formapp',               # Your app
]

Configure SITE_ID

This is needed for Django’s sites framework. Allauth uses this to differentiate between multiple domains. Since we’re using one site, we set:

SITE_ID = 1

Set up authentication backends

We need to tell Django to use both its default backend and the one provided by allauth, add these codes in settings.py:

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    "django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend",  # Default auth
    "allauth.account.auth_backends.AuthenticationBackend",  # Required by allauth
)

Define redirect URLs after login/logout

These control where users are redirected after they log in or log out:

LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = '/'  # Redirect after successful login
ACCOUNT_LOGOUT_REDIRECT_URL = '/accounts/login/'  # Redirect after logout

Customize account behavior

Here we define what fields are required and how authentication should behave:

ACCOUNT_EMAIL_REQUIRED = True                  # Email must be provided
ACCOUNT_USERNAME_REQUIRED = True               # Username is also required
ACCOUNT_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD = 'username_email'  # Users can log in using username or email
ACCOUNT_EMAIL_VERIFICATION = 'none'            # Skip email verification for simplicity

Ensure required middleware and context processors are present

allauth needs access to the request object in templates. Add the following to TEMPLATES:

'django.template.context_processors.request',

And include the AccountMiddleware:

'allauth.account.middleware.AccountMiddleware',

Step 3: Create a Custom Signup Form

Sometimes you want to collect additional user data or change signup behavior. We do this by creating a form that extends SignupForm.

Create the following inside formapp/forms.py (make sure it is inside the app folder, not the project folder):

from allauth.account.forms import SignupForm
from django import forms

class CustomSignupForm(SignupForm):
    first_name = forms.CharField(max_length=30, label='First Name')
    last_name = forms.CharField(max_length=30, label='Last Name')

    def save(self, request):
        user = super().save(request)
        user.first_name = self.cleaned_data['first_name']
        user.last_name = self.cleaned_data['last_name']
        user.save()
        return user

Then, tell Django to use this form:

# settings.py
ACCOUNT_FORMS = {
    'signup': 'formapp.forms.CustomSignupForm',
}

This replaces the default signup form with your custom one.

Step 4: Set Up URLs

django-allauth provides ready-made views like /login/, /signup/, /logout/. To enable them, include its URLs in the project’s urls.py:

# form/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('accounts/', include('allauth.urls')),
]

Now visiting /accounts/login/ or /accounts/signup/ will render the custom signup form (if defined), or the default form otherwise.

Step 5: Run the Server and Test

Migrate the database to create necessary tables:

python manage.py makemigrations

python manage.py migrate

Open your browser and visit:

• To register a new user: http://127.0.0.1:8000/accounts/signup/
• To log in: http://127.0.0.1:8000/accounts/login/
• To log out: http://127.0.0.1:8000/accounts/logout/

Outputs:

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