Unable log in to the django admin page with a valid username and password

Question

I can’t log in to the django admin page. When I enter a valid username and password, it just brings up the login page again, with no error messages

This question is in the django FAQ, but I've gone over the answers there and still can't get past the initial login screen.

I'm using django 1.4 on ubuntu 12.04 with apache2 and modwsgi.

I've confirmed that I'm registering the admin in the admin.py file, made sure to syncdb after adding INSTALLED_APPS. When I enter the wrong password I DO get an error, so my admin user is being authenticated, just not proceeding to the admin page.

I've tried both setting SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN to the machine's IP and None. (Confirmed that the cookie domain shows as the machine's IP in chrome)

Also, checked that the user authenticates via the shell:

>>> from django.contrib.auth import authenticate
>>> u = authenticate(username="user", password="pass")
>>> u.is_staff
True
>>> u.is_superuser
True
>>> u.is_active 
True

Attempted login using IE8 and chrome canary, both results in the same return to the login screen.

Is there something else I'm missing????

settings.py

...
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.gzip.GZipMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.transaction.TransactionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
)
AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = ('django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',)
INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.admin',    
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'django.contrib.gis',
    'myapp.main',
)

SESSION_EXPIRE_AT_BROWSER_CLOSE = True
SESSION_SAVE_EVERY_REQUEST = True
SESSION_COOKIE_AGE = 86400 # sec
SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN = None
SESSION_COOKIE_NAME = 'DSESSIONID'
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = False

urls.py

from django.conf.urls.defaults import * #@UnusedWildImport
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
from django.contrib import admin

admin.autodiscover()

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    (r'^bin/', include('myproject.main.urls')),    
    (r'^layer/r(?P<layer_id>\d+)/$', "myproject.layer.views.get_result_layer"),
    (r'^layer/b(?P<layer_id>\d+)/$', "myproject.layer.views.get_baseline_layer"),
    (r'^layer/c(?P<layer_id>\d+)/$', "myproject.layer.views.get_candidate_layer"),    
    (r'^layers/$', "myproject.layer.views.get_layer_definitions"),
    (r'^js/mapui.js$', "myproject.layer.views.view_mapjs"),
    (r'^tilestache/config/$', "myproject.layer.views.get_tilestache_cfg"),
    (r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),  
    (r'^sites/', include("myproject.sites.urls")),  
    (r'^$', "myproject.layer.views.view_map"),
)


urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()

Apache Version:

Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu) mod_wsgi/3.3 Python/2.7.3 configured

Apache apache2/sites-available/default:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin ironman@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/bin
        LogLevel warn
        WSGIDaemonProcess lbs processes=2 maximum-requests=500 threads=1
        WSGIProcessGroup lbs
        WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/bin/apache/django.wsgi
        Alias /static /var/www/lbs/static/
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:8080>
        ServerAdmin ironman@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/bin
        LogLevel warn
        WSGIDaemonProcess tilestache processes=2 maximum-requests=500 threads=1
        WSGIProcessGroup tilestache
        WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/bin/tileserver/tilestache.wsgi
</VirtualHost>

UPDATE

The admin page does proceed when using the development server via runserver so it seems like a wsgi/apache issue. Still haven't figured it out yet.

SOLUTION

The problem was that I had the settings file SESSION_ENGINE value set to 'django.contrib.sessions.backends.cache' without having the CACHE_BACKEND properly configured.

I've changed the SESSION_ENGINE to 'django.contrib.sessions.backends.db' which resolved the issue.

Answer 1

Steps to debug:

• Make sure that your Database is synced
  • Double check that you have a django_session table
• Try to authenticate
  • Do you see a record being created in the django_session table?

IF NOT

• remove non-standard settings
  • AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = ('django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',)
  • SESSION_EXPIRE_AT_BROWSER_CLOSE = True
  • SESSION_SAVE_EVERY_REQUEST = True
  • SESSION_COOKIE_AGE = 86400 # sec
  • SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN = None
  • SESSION_COOKIE_NAME = 'DSESSIONID'
  • SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = False
• Make sure that your Database is synced
  • Double check that you have a django_session table
• Try to authenticate
  • Do you see a record being created in the django_session table?

Let me know if this turns up any useful debug.

Sample settings file: https://github.com/fyaconiello/Django-Blank-Bare-Bones-CMS/blob/master/dbbbcms/settings.py