Can't login to django admin after creating a super user with a custom user model

Question

I've been trying for hours to login to the django admin panel with a successfully created superuser but cannot get the right username/pw combo right.

I want users to just use their email as their username. I've also done my best to replicate the example in the Django docs here. I've deleted migrations, sycndb, and everything works except logging in to the admin panel.

Relevant code: From models.py:

from django.db import models
from django.forms import ModelForm
from django.contrib.auth.models import BaseUserManager, AbstractBaseUser

class UserManager(BaseUserManager):
    def create_user(self, email, password=None):
        """
        Creates and saves a User with the given email
        """
        if not email:
            raise ValueError('Users must have an email address')

        user = self.model(
            email=UserManager.normalize_email(email),
        )
        user.set_password(password)
        user.save(using=self._db)
        return user

    def create_superuser(self, email, password):
        """
        Creates and saves a superuser with the given email, date of
        birth and password.
        """
        user = self.create_user(email,
            password=password
        )

        user.is_admin = True
        user.is_staff = True
        user.is_superuser = True
        user.save(using=self._db)
        return user



class User(AbstractBaseUser):
    objects = UserManager()
    date_added = models.DateField(auto_now=False, auto_now_add=True)
    email = models.EmailField(unique=True, db_index=True)
    USERNAME_FIELD = 'email'
    REQUIRED_FIELDS = []

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.email

    is_active = models.BooleanField(default=True)
    is_admin = models.BooleanField(default=False)

    def get_full_name(self):
    # The user is identified by their email address
        return self.email

    def get_short_name(self):
    # The user is identified by their email address
        return self.email

    # On Python 3: def __str__(self):
    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.email

    def has_perm(self, perm, obj=None):

    # Simplest possible answer: Yes, always
        return True

    def has_module_perms(self, app_label):

    # Simplest possible answer: Yes, always
        return True

    def is_staff(self):

    # Simplest possible answer: All admins are staff
        return self.is_admin   

From admin.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from app.models import Relationship, Event, User
from django import forms
from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth.models import Group
from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin
from django.contrib.auth.forms import ReadOnlyPasswordHashField


class UserCreationForm(forms.ModelForm):
    """A form for creating new users. Includes all the required
    fields, plus a repeated password."""

    password1 = forms.CharField(label='Password', widget=forms.PasswordInput)
    password2 = forms.CharField(label='Password confirmation', widget=forms.PasswordInput)

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('email',)

    def clean_password2(self):
        # Check that the two password entries match
        password1 = self.cleaned_data.get("password1")
        password2 = self.cleaned_data.get("password2")
        if password1 and password2 and password1 != password2:
            raise forms.ValidationError("Passwords don't match")
        return password2

    def save(self, commit=True):
        user = super(UserCreationForm, self).save(commit=False)
        user.set_password(self.cleaned_data["password1"])
        if commit:
            user.save()
        return user


class UserChangeForm(forms.ModelForm):
    password = ReadOnlyPasswordHashField()

    class Meta:
        model = User

    def clean_password(self):
        return self.initial["password"]





class UserAdmin(UserAdmin):
    # The forms to add and change user instances
    form = UserChangeForm
    add_form = UserCreationForm


    list_display = ('email', 'is_admin')
    list_filter = ('is_admin',)
    fieldsets = (
        (None, {'fields': ('email', 'password')}),
        ('Permissions', {'fields': ('is_admin',)}),
    )

    add_fieldsets = (
        (None, {
            'classes': ('wide',),
            'fields': ('email', 'password1', 'password2')}
        ),
    )
    search_fields = ('email',)
    ordering = ('email',)
    filter_horizontal = ()

admin.site.register(User, UserAdmin)
admin.site.unregister(Group)

Relevant settings.py code:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware',
    # Uncomment the next line for simple clickjacking protection:
    # 'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'relrem.urls'

# Python dotted path to the WSGI application used by Django's runserver.
WSGI_APPLICATION = 'relrem.wsgi.application'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/django_templates" or "C:/www/django/templates".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'app',
    'south',

    # Uncomment the next line to enable admin documentation:
    # 'django.contrib.admindocs',
)

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'app.User'

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend',
)

Sample terminal output from creating a superuser and viewing it in a table:

Email: [email protected]
Password:
Password (again):
Superuser created successfully.

[
{
"pk": 1,
"model": "app.user",
"fields": {
    "is_active": true,
    "last_login": "2013-09-24T02:09:44.996Z",
    "is_admin": true,
    "date_added": "2013-09-23",
    "password": "",
    "email": "[email protected]"
}
}
]

I think it must be something to do with the way the password is being saved and returned, because no matter what I do I get the "Please enter the correct email and password for a staff account. Note that both fields may be case-sensitive." message. My password I set there was "sample". I've tried removing all of the code related to hashing the pw and cleaning it, but that actually still returns a hash in the user table.

I hope I'm doing something obvious wrong, thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to look through this whole question.

Answer 1

The code is fine. The problem is you're using the RemoteUserBackend exclusively, instead of the default backend:

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend',
)

I've never used it myself, but from the docs it's clear that it'll only check for a REMOTE_USER header in your requests, thus making your password login attempts irrelevant.

You could add the default ModelBackend as a fallback, if you wan't to have both available:

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
        'django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend',
        'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',
)

or get rid of the RemoteUserBackend alltogether and have your app authenticate the default way.

Hope this helps.