Django to return a view with TokenAuthentication for WebView

Question

I am trying to create a flutter app which will use webview to display authenticated data from my Django App.

Steps Involved:

1. Flutter app sends authentication request
2. Django validates the user credentials (user id & Password) and returns authtoken
3. Flutter then sends a request via a webview to a url (which requires login).

I would like to login the user in webapp using this token and return the webview. If the url does not require authentcation, it works like a charm. When the url requires authentication, I am redirected to the login page and I want users to bypass that using token authentication which is already aquired in Step 1

here is my Django view.

class QuizTake(FormView):
    permission_classes = (IsAuthenticated,)
    form_class = QuestionForm
    template_name = 'question.html'
    result_template_name = 'result.html'
    single_complete_template_name = 'single_complete.html'
    login_template_name='login.html'

      
    def dispatch(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        self.quiz = get_object_or_404(Quiz, url=self.kwargs['quiz_name'])
        print(self.kwargs['quiz_name'])
        
        """
        Authenticate if the request has token authentication
        """

        if self.quiz.draft and not request.user.has_perm('quiz.change_quiz'):
            raise PermissionDenied

        try:
            self.logged_in_user = self.request.user.is_authenticated()
        except TypeError:
            self.logged_in_user = self.request.user.is_authenticated

        if self.logged_in_user:
            self.sitting = Sitting.objects.user_sitting(request.user,
                                                        self.quiz)
        else:
            self.sitting = self.anon_load_sitting()

        if self.sitting is False:
            print("sitting false")
            if self.logged_in_user:
                return render(request, self.single_complete_template_name)
            else:                
                redirecturl = "/login/?next=/quiz/"+self.kwargs['quiz_name']+"/take/"
                return redirect(redirecturl)
        return super(QuizTake, self).dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)

Flutter Code

class _QuizLauncherState extends State<QuizLauncher> {
  final String url, authtoken;
  final int userId;
  String quizUrl;
  _QuizLauncherState(this.url,  this.authtoken,this.userId);

  void initState() {
    quizUrl = 'https://test.mysite.com/quiz/$url/take';
    print(quizUrl);
    //for reference https://test.mysite.com/quiz/56df5d90-7f67-45ff-8fe1-7c07728ba9ab/take/
    super.initState();
  }

  Completer<WebViewController> _controller = Completer<WebViewController>();
  final Set<String> _favorites = Set<String>();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        // This drop down menu demonstrates that Flutter widgets can be shown over the web view.
        actions: <Widget>[
          NavigationControls(_controller.future),
          Menu(_controller.future, () => _favorites),
        ],
      ),          
      body: WebView(
        javascriptMode: JavascriptMode.unrestricted,
        onWebViewCreated: (WebViewController webViewController) {
          Map<String, String> headers = {"Authorization": "Bearer " + authtoken};
          webViewController.loadUrl(quizUrl, headers: headers);
        },

      ),      
    );
  }
}

Is this possible at all? If there are any alternate ways, please tell me. Basically, I am trying to access a url via webview which requires authentication, using authtoken. Please help.

Answer 1

You can use custom authentication classes like this, say if you are using Authorization header:

from rest_framework.authentication import BaseAuthentication

class MyCustomAuth(BaseAuthentication):
    def authenticate(self, request):
        auth_method, token = request.META['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'].split(' ', 1)
        # Get your user via the token here
        if you_got_your_user:
            return user, None
        return None # or raise AuthFailedException


class QuizTake(FormView):
    authentication_classes = (MyCustomAuth, )

This still depends on how your token identifies the user though. For example if you are using JWT, there are existing authentication classes already that handles this for you.

EDIT: Looked at knox documentation from here. If you used knox, then you should probably use their own TokenAuthentication class. Can you try with below code:

from knox.auth import TokenAuthentication

class QuizTake(FormView):
    authentication_classes = (TokenAuthentication, )