Django Framework¶

Django framework has a little more support since this application was derived from django-social-auth. Here are some details on configuring this application on Django.

Installing¶

From pypi:

$ pip install social-auth-app-django

And for MongoEngine ORM:

$ pip install social-auth-app-django-mongoengine

Current social-auth-app-django releases follow supported Django versions and require Django 5.2 or newer and Python 3.10 or newer.

Quickstart¶

This quickstart covers the essential configuration to get social authentication working in your Django project.

1. Add to INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'social_django',
)

2. Configure authentication backends (example for Google OAuth2):

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'social_core.backends.google.GoogleOAuth2',
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',  # Keep for username/password login
)

3. Add OAuth credentials to settings.py:

This is where you configure your client_id, client_secret, and scope for each provider:

# Google OAuth2
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_KEY = 'your-client-id.apps.googleusercontent.com'
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_SECRET = 'your-client-secret'
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_SCOPE = [
    'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email',
    'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile',
]

For other providers, the pattern is SOCIAL_AUTH_<PROVIDER>_KEY, SOCIAL_AUTH_<PROVIDER>_SECRET, and SOCIAL_AUTH_<PROVIDER>_SCOPE. See Backends for provider-specific settings.

Warning

Never commit credentials to version control. Use environment variables instead:

import os
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_KEY = os.environ.get('GOOGLE_OAUTH2_KEY')
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_SECRET = os.environ.get('GOOGLE_OAUTH2_SECRET')

4. Add URLs to urls.py:

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('', include('social_django.urls', namespace='social')),
]

5. Configure redirect URLs:

LOGIN_URL = '/login/'
LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = '/'
LOGOUT_REDIRECT_URL = '/'

6. Run migrations:

python manage.py migrate

7. Add login form in template:

<form method="post" action="{% url 'social:begin' 'google-oauth2' %}">
    {% csrf_token %}
    <button type="submit">Login with Google</button>
</form>

Note

Database considerations: SQLite has field length limitations that can cause issues. For production, use PostgreSQL or MySQL. If using MySQL InnoDB or SQLite, add:

SOCIAL_AUTH_UID_LENGTH = 223

For additional configuration options, see Configuration.

Register the application¶

The Django built-in app comes with two ORMs, one for default Django ORM and another for MongoEngine ORM.

Add the application to INSTALLED_APPS setting, for default ORM:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'social_django',
    ...
)

And for MongoEngine ORM:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'social_django_mongoengine',
    ...
)

Also ensure to define the MongoEngine storage setting:

SOCIAL_AUTH_STORAGE = 'social_django_mongoengine.models.DjangoStorage'

Database¶

The built-in models use Django’s native JSONField to store extracted extra_data.

Sync the database to create needed models once you added social_django to your installed apps:

./manage.py migrate

Authentication backends¶

Add desired authentication backends to Django’s AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS setting:

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'social_core.backends.open_id.OpenIdAuth',
    'social_core.backends.google.GoogleOAuth2',
    'social_core.backends.twitter.TwitterOAuth',
    ...
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',
)

Take into account that backends must be defined in AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS or Django won’t pick them when trying to authenticate the user.

Don’t miss django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend if using django.contrib.auth application or users won’t be able to login by username / password method.

For more documentation about setting backends to specific social applications, please see the Backends.

URLs entries¶

Add URLs entries:

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path("", include('social_django.urls', namespace="social")),
    ...
]

In case you need a custom namespace, this setting is also needed:

SOCIAL_AUTH_URL_NAMESPACE = 'social'

Hint

In case you include the namespace from another namespace, you need to adjust the configuration accordingly to include the parent namespace:

SOCIAL_AUTH_URL_NAMESPACE = 'accounts:social'

Templates¶

Example of google-oauth2 backend usage in template:

<form method="post" action="{% url 'social:begin' 'google-oauth2' %}">
    {% csrf_token %}
    <button type="submit">Google</button>
</form>

Template Context Processors¶

There’s a context processor that will add backends and associations data to template context:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        ...
        'OPTIONS': {
            ...
            'context_processors': [
                ...
                'social_django.context_processors.backends',
                'social_django.context_processors.login_redirect',
                ...
            ]
        }
    }
]

backends context processor will load a backends key in the context with three entries on it:

associated: It’s a list of UserSocialAuth instances related with the currently logged in user. Will be empty if there’s no current user.
not_associated: A list of available backend names not associated with the current user yet. If there’s no user logged in, it will be a list of all available backends.
backends: A list of all available backend names.

Personalized Configuration¶

You can add (or remove) several features on the social auth pipeline.

By default there are some pipelines on social_django:

social_details - Get the information we can about the user and return it in a simple format to create the user instance later. On some cases the details are already part of the auth response from the provider, but sometimes this could hit a provider API.

social_uid - Get the social uid from whichever service we’re authing thru. The uid is the unique identifier of the given user in the provider.

auth_allowed - Verifies that the current auth process is valid within the current project, this is where emails and domains whitelists are applied (if defined).

social_user - Checks if the current social-account is already associated in the site.

get_username- Make up a username for this person, appends a random string at the end if there’s any collision.

create_user - Create a user account if we haven’t found one yet.

associate_user - Create the record that associated the social account with this user.

extra_data - Populate the extra_data field in the social record with the values specified by settings (and the default ones like access_token, etc).

user_details - Update the user record with any changed info from the auth service.

Some other pipelines are available for use as well, but are not included by default:

associate_by_email - Associate current auth with a user with the same email address in the DB. Obs: This pipeline entry is not 100% secure unless you know that the providers enabled enforce email verification on their side, otherwise a user can attempt to take over another user account by using the same (not validated) email address on some provider.

Usage example:

SOCIAL_AUTH_PIPELINE = (
    'social_core.pipeline.social_auth.social_details',
    'social_core.pipeline.social_auth.social_uid',
    'social_core.pipeline.social_auth.social_user',
    'social_core.pipeline.user.get_username',
    'social_core.pipeline.social_auth.associate_by_email',
    'social_core.pipeline.user.create_user',
    'social_core.pipeline.social_auth.associate_user',
    'social_core.pipeline.social_auth.load_extra_data',
    'social_core.pipeline.user.user_details',
)

ORMs¶

As detailed above the built-in Django application supports default ORM and MongoEngine ORM.

When using MongoEngine make sure you’ve followed the instructions for MongoEngine Django integration, as you’re now utilizing that user model. The MongoEngine_ backend was developed and tested with version 0.6.10 of MongoEngine_.

Alternate storage models implementations currently follow a tight pattern of models that behave near or identical to Django ORM models. It is currently not decoupled from this pattern by any abstraction layer. If you would like to implement your own alternate, please see the social_django.models and social_django_mongoengine.models modules for guidance.

Active users filtering¶

By default the model allows only active users to authenticate. This can be customised by SOCIAL_AUTH_ACTIVE_USERS_FILTER setting which is passed as kwargs to the query set filter method.

Disable filtering for active users¶

SOCIAL_AUTH_ACTIVE_USERS_FILTER = {}

Use custom field to filter active users¶

SOCIAL_AUTH_ACTIVE_USERS_FILTER = {"deleted_account": False}

JSON field storage¶

The current Django models use Django’s native models.JSONField for extra_data and partial pipeline data. No JSON field setting is needed for new installations.

Older migrations still import social_django.fields.JSONField for migration compatibility. The historical SOCIAL_AUTH_JSONFIELD_ENABLED, SOCIAL_AUTH_JSONFIELD_CUSTOM, and SOCIAL_AUTH_POSTGRES_JSONFIELD settings are only relevant while running those legacy migrations.

Exceptions Middleware¶

A base middleware is provided that handles SocialAuthBaseException by providing an error message to the user via configured transport mechanisms (Django messages framework, redirect URL query parameters, or both), and then responding with a redirect to a URL defined in one of the middleware methods.

The middleware is at social_django.middleware.SocialAuthExceptionMiddleware. Any method can be overridden, but for simplicity these two are recommended:

get_message(request, exception)
get_redirect_uri(request, exception)

By default, the message is the exception message and the URL for the redirect is the location specified by the LOGIN_ERROR_URL setting. The middleware supports both synchronous and asynchronous Django request handlers.

If a valid backend was detected by strategy() decorator, it will be available at request.strategy.backend and process_exception() will use it to build a backend-dependent redirect URL but fallback to default if not defined.

Error Transports¶

In traditional server-rendered Django applications, social authentication errors are stored in Django’s flash messages framework (django.contrib.messages) and rendered by server-side templates (e.g. {% if messages %}).

However, in modern Single Page Applications (SPAs built with React, Vue, Angular, etc.) or hybrid architectures, login and authentication views are handled on the client side. When django.contrib.messages is installed (such as for the Django Admin), error messages default to session/cookie flash storage and are never surfaced on client-side rendered frontend login pages.

To support SPAs and hybrid setups, SocialAuthExceptionMiddleware provides a configurable error transport mechanism via the SOCIAL_AUTH_ERROR_TRANSPORT setting.

An ErrorTransport enum is available in social_django.middleware:

from social_django.middleware import ErrorTransport

The supported transport modes are:

ErrorTransport.MESSAGES (or string 'messages'): (Default) Dispatches errors via django.contrib.messages.error tagged with social-auth and the backend name. This maintains 100% backward compatibility with standard Django applications.
ErrorTransport.QUERY (or string 'query'): Appends the error message and backend name as URL query parameters to the redirect target (e.g. LOGIN_ERROR_URL), allowing client-side routers (such as Vue Router or React Router) to inspect query parameters (e.g., $route.query or URLSearchParams).

Both transports can be configured together to support hybrid applications where both Django template views and client-side SPAs handle authentication errors.

Configuration examples:

from social_django.middleware import ErrorTransport

# SPA / Client-side frontend: deliver errors via URL query parameters
SOCIAL_AUTH_ERROR_TRANSPORT = [ErrorTransport.QUERY]
# or using string notation:
# SOCIAL_AUTH_ERROR_TRANSPORT = 'query'

# Hybrid application: deliver via both Django messages and URL query parameters
SOCIAL_AUTH_ERROR_TRANSPORT = [ErrorTransport.MESSAGES, ErrorTransport.QUERY]
# or using string notation:
# SOCIAL_AUTH_ERROR_TRANSPORT = ['messages', 'query']

The setting accepts an ErrorTransport enum instance, a string (case-insensitive), or an iterable (such as a list or tuple) containing enum values or strings.

Fallback behavior:

If ErrorTransport.MESSAGES is enabled and django.contrib.messages is not installed or a MessageFailure occurs, the middleware automatically falls back to appending query parameters (unless ErrorTransport.QUERY is already active).
If an unrecognized transport value is supplied, the middleware safely falls back to the default [ErrorTransport.MESSAGES].

Query Parameter Customization¶

When query parameter transport is active (or triggered via fallback), the redirect destination receives two query parameters:

message = '': Message from the exception raised. In some cases, this is the error message returned by the provider during the authentication process.
backend = '': Backend name that was used, or unknown-backend if unresolved.

You can customize the query parameter keys globally or per-backend using Django settings:

SOCIAL_AUTH_ERROR_PARAM_NAME = 'error_msg'       # Default is 'message'
SOCIAL_AUTH_BACKEND_PARAM_NAME = 'auth_backend'  # Default is 'backend'

Alternatively, if you subclass SocialAuthExceptionMiddleware, you can override the class attributes directly:

class CustomExceptionMiddleware(SocialAuthExceptionMiddleware):
    ERROR_PARAM_NAME = 'error_msg'
    BACKEND_PARAM_NAME = 'auth_backend'

URL query parameters are safely merged using urllib.parse: any existing query parameters are preserved, stale error/backend parameters are updated with the latest failure details, and URL fragments (such as /login/#/auth-callback) are preserved with query parameters placed before the hash.

Backend-specific settings¶

Error transports, error URLs, parameter names, and exception raising can all be configured on a per-backend basis using the SOCIAL_AUTH_<BACKEND_NAME>_<SETTING> pattern.

Error transport per-backend:

# Default for all backends (Django messages)
SOCIAL_AUTH_ERROR_TRANSPORT = [ErrorTransport.MESSAGES]

# Specific to Facebook (SPA route using query parameters)
SOCIAL_AUTH_FACEBOOK_ERROR_TRANSPORT = [ErrorTransport.QUERY]

# Specific to Google OAuth2 (both messages and query parameters)
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_ERROR_TRANSPORT = ['messages', 'query']

Error URLs per-backend:

SOCIAL_AUTH_LOGIN_ERROR_URL = '/login-error/'  # Default for all backends
SOCIAL_AUTH_FACEBOOK_LOGIN_ERROR_URL = '/facebook-error/'  # Specific to Facebook
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_LOGIN_ERROR_URL = '/google-error/'  # Specific to Google OAuth2

Query parameter names per-backend:

SOCIAL_AUTH_FACEBOOK_ERROR_PARAM_NAME = 'fb_error'
SOCIAL_AUTH_FACEBOOK_BACKEND_PARAM_NAME = 'fb_backend'

Exception raising per-backend:

SOCIAL_AUTH_RAISE_EXCEPTIONS = False  # Default for all backends
SOCIAL_AUTH_FACEBOOK_RAISE_EXCEPTIONS = True  # Raise exceptions only for Facebook

This is particularly useful when you want different error handling strategies for different authentication providers, such as showing a custom error page for certain providers or raising exceptions for debugging specific backends while keeping others in production mode.

Exception processing is disabled if any of these settings is defined with a True value:

<backend name>_SOCIAL_AUTH_RAISE_EXCEPTIONS = True
SOCIAL_AUTH_RAISE_EXCEPTIONS = True
RAISE_EXCEPTIONS = True
DEBUG = True

Django Admin¶

The default application (not the MongoEngine one) contains an admin.py module that will be auto-discovered by the usual mechanism.

But, by the nature of the application which depends on the existence of a user model, it’s easy to fall in a recursive import ordering making the application fail to load. This happens because the admin module will build a set of fields to populate the search_fields property to search for related users in the administration UI, but this requires the user model to be retrieved which might not be defined at that time.

To avoid this issue define the following setting to circumvent the import error:

SOCIAL_AUTH_ADMIN_USER_SEARCH_FIELDS = ['field1', 'field2']

For example:

SOCIAL_AUTH_ADMIN_USER_SEARCH_FIELDS = ['username', 'first_name', 'email']

The fields listed must be user models fields.

It’s also possible to define more search fields, not directly related to the user model by definig the following setting:

SOCIAL_AUTH_ADMIN_SEARCH_FIELDS = ['field1', 'field2']

Django Framework¶

Installing¶

Quickstart¶

Register the application¶

Database¶

Authentication backends¶

URLs entries¶

Starting Login¶

Templates¶

Template Context Processors¶

Personalized Configuration¶

ORMs¶

Active users filtering¶

JSON field storage¶

Exceptions Middleware¶

Error Transports¶

Query Parameter Customization¶

Backend-specific settings¶

Django Admin¶