**Course Title:** Mastering Django Framework: Building Scalable Web Applications **Section Title:** User Authentication and Authorization **Topic:** Implementing Django's built-in authentication system In this topic, we will explore Django's built-in authentication system, which provides a robust and secure way to manage user authentication and authorization in your Django applications. By the end of this topic, you will understand how to implement user authentication and authorization in your Django projects. ### What is Django's Built-in Authentication System? Django's built-in authentication system is a comprehensive framework that provides a set of tools and APIs to manage user authentication and authorization. It includes features such as: * User registration and login * Password hashing and verification * Session management * Permission and group management * Authentication backends ### Setting up Django's Built-in Authentication System To use Django's built-in authentication system, you need to add the following lines to your `settings.py` file: ```python INSTALLED_APPS = [ # ... 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', # ... ] AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [ 'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend', ] ``` You also need to run the following commands to create the necessary database tables: ```bash python manage.py makemigrations python manage.py migrate ``` ### User Authentication Django's built-in authentication system uses the `User` model to store user information. You can create a new user using the following code: ```python from django.contrib.auth.models import User user = User.objects.create_user('john', 'john@example.com', 'password') ``` You can also use the `create_superuser` method to create a superuser: ```python from django.contrib.auth.models import User superuser = User.objects.create_superuser('john', 'john@example.com', 'password') ``` ### User Login and Logout To log in a user, you can use the following code: ```python from django.contrib.auth import authenticate, login username = 'john' password = 'password' user = authenticate(username=username, password=password) if user is not None: login(request, user) ``` To log out a user, you can use the following code: ```python from django.contrib.auth import logout logout(request) ``` ### User Permissions and Groups Django's built-in authentication system uses the `Permission` and `Group` models to manage user permissions and groups. You can assign permissions to a user using the following code: ```python from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission permission = Permission.objects.get(codename='can_add_article') user.user_permissions.add(permission) ``` You can also assign a user to a group using the following code: ```python from django.contrib.auth.models import Group group = Group.objects.get(name='editors') user.groups.add(group) ``` ### Conclusion In this topic, we have explored Django's built-in authentication system, which provides a robust and secure way to manage user authentication and authorization in your Django applications. We have covered topics such as user registration and login, password hashing and verification, session management, permission and group management, and authentication backends. ### What's Next? In the next topic, we will explore how to create user registration and login/logout functionality using Django's built-in authentication system. **Leave a comment below if you have any questions or need further clarification on any of the topics covered in this topic.** **External Resources:** * Django documentation: [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/topics/auth/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/topics/auth/) * Django authentication tutorial: [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/topics/auth/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/topics/auth/)