#25029: When external authentication via REMOTE_USER is only configured on
/admin/login/, the authentication does not persist
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Reporter: adelton | Owner: nobody
Type: Uncategorized | Status: new
Component: contrib.auth | Version: master
Severity: Normal | Resolution:
Keywords: | Triage Stage: Unreviewed
Has patch: 1 | Needs documentation: 0
Needs tests: 0 | Patch needs improvement: 0
Easy pickings: 0 | UI/UX: 0
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Comment (by adelton):
Replying to [comment:2 carljm]:
> Is there any compelling benefit to having this in core Django rather
than an external library?
The benefit is increased number of deployments of **existing**
applications that can be done by changing one line in MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES
in settings.py. In many cases the person deploying that application which
needs to consume external authentication is not a programmer and dealing
with extra code is a blocker. Having the option come directly with Django
seems more straightforward. From maintenance point of view, the class
touches some internals of Django that it seems best to have it with the
rest of the `RemoteUserMiddleware` code so that should the internals
change, people are not faced with the task of getting correct version of
the external library.
Normally I'd say that `RemoteUserMiddleware` should not even insist on
seeing the REMOTE_USER filled upon every request but I guess changing the
current behaviour might be disruptive, that's why I'm proposing a way for
admin to be explicit with their choice of behaviour.
The traditional model of REMOTE_USER being produced primarily by setups
with HTTP Basic Auth which keeps sending the credentials with every
request and thus the username available with every request is no longer
there as virtually noone uses Basic Authentication, while external
authentication in frontend HTTP server can bring benefits especially in
large organizations when the Apache modules are used for cross-realm
authentication or identity federation. The typical use-case is then to
override or extend one (logon) URL. We have a writeup about the approach
at http://www.freeipa.org/page/Web_App_Authentication.
Another benefit for Django as a project is that it would make it much
easier to use Django in demos of external authentications, be it Kerberos,
SAML, or other.
> I'm not convinced the need is frequent enough to have it in core Django.
(Even `RemoteUserMiddleware` itself is on the edge, IMO).
It's not in core Django, it's in `django/contrib/auth`. I thought the
contrib in the name makes it a good place to live, especially for
"integration" code like this.
You might not see many `RemoteUserMiddleware` deployments exactly for the
reason that with other authentication mechanisms than Basic Auth, it's
currently not particularly useful.
--
Ticket URL: <https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/25029#comment:3>
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