Overview

Django ships with a built-in User model for authentication, however the official Django documentation highly recommends using a custom user model for new projects.

There are two modern ways to create a custom user model in Django: AbstractUser and AbstractBaseUser. In both cases we can subclass them to extend existing functionality however AbstractBaseUser requires much, much more work. So here we will use AbstractUser. We will also create a UserProfile model to store additional information of user  with the help of One-To-One Link. After this we will extend the BaseUserManager functionality a little-bit. We will also configure signals to automatically create UserProfile whenever an User object is created. Finally we will customize django admin.

Note: This should be done at the begining of the project before running any migrations.

Step 1

• Create an app.

• python manage.py startapp users

• Now register your app in your installed apps.

• # settings.py
  INSTALLED_APPS += [
      'users',
  ]
  

• Add AUTH_USER_MODEL in settings.py

• # settings.py
  AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'users.User'

Step 2

• Create a file constants.py inside users directory

• # users/constants.py
  SUPERUSER = 1
  STAFF = 2
  STUDENT = 3
  TUTOR = 4
  
  USER_TYPE_CHOICES = (
        (SUPERUSER, 'superuser'),
        (STAFF, 'staff'),
        (STUDENT, 'student'),
        (TUTOR, 'tutor'),
    )

   

• Extend the User model in your users/models.py

• # users/models.py
  
  from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser
  from django.db import models
  from django.utils import timezone
  from apps.users.managers import UserManager
  from . import constants as user_constants
  
  class User(AbstractUser):
      username = None # remove username field, we will use email as unique identifier
      email = models.EmailField(unique=True, null=True, db_index=True)
      is_active = models.BooleanField(default=False)
      is_staff = models.BooleanField(default=False)
      date_joined = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)
      user_type = models.PositiveSmallIntegerField(choices=user_constants.USER_TYPE_CHOICES)
  
      REQUIRED_FIELDS = []
      USERNAME_FIELD = 'email'
  
      objects = UserManager()
  
  
  class UserProfile(models.Model):
      user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE, primary_key=True,related_name="user_profile")
      phone = models.CharField(max_length=255,blank=True,null=True)
      is_verified = models.BooleanField(default=False)
      created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
      updated_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
  
      def __str__(self):
          return self.user.email
  

• Extend UserManager in users/managers.py

• # users/managers.py
  
  from django.contrib.auth.models import BaseUserManager
  from . import constants as user_constants
  
  class UserManager(BaseUserManager):
      def create_user(self, email, password, **extra_fields):
         
          if not email:
              raise ValueError('The Email must be set')
          email = self.normalize_email(email)
          user = self.model(email=email, **extra_fields)
          user.set_password(password)
          user.save()
          return user
  
      def create_superuser(self, email, password, **extra_fields):
          extra_fields.setdefault('is_superuser', True)
          extra_fields.setdefault('is_staff', True)
          extra_fields.setdefault('is_active', True)
          extra_fields.setdefault('user_type',user_constants.SUPERUSER)
          if extra_fields.get('is_superuser') is not True:
              raise ValueError('Superuser must have is_superuser=True.')
          return self.create_user(email, password, **extra_fields)
  

Step 3

• Run the commands below to make changes

• python manage.py makemigrations
  python manage.py migrate

Step 4

• Now let's create signals for automatically creating UserProfile instance in users/signals.py

• # users/signals.py
  from django.db import models
  from django.db.models.signals import post_save
  from django.dispatch import receiver
  from .models import UserProfile, User
  
  @receiver(post_save, sender=User)
  def create_or_update_user_profile(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
      if created:
          UserProfile.objects.create(user=instance)
      instance.user_profile.save()

• Now, register your signals file inside users/apps.py by adding a method ready and import signals path

• # users/apps.py
  from django.apps import AppConfig
  
  class UsersConfig(AppConfig):
      name = 'apps.users'
  
      def ready(self):
          import apps.users.signals
  

• Now, add default_app_config to users/__init__.py

• # users/__init__.py
  default_app_config = 'users.apps.UsersConfig'

Step 5

• Let's extend UserCreationForm  and UserChangeForm in users/forms.py

• # users/forms.py
  from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm, UserChangeForm
  from .models import User
  
  
  class CustomUserCreationForm(UserCreationForm):
  
      class Meta(UserCreationForm):
          model = User
          fields = ('email',)
  
  
  class CustomUserChangeForm(UserChangeForm):
  
      class Meta:
          model = User
          fields = ('email',)
  

   

Step 6

• Let's customize django's admin now

• # users/admin.py
  from django.contrib import admin
  from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin
  from .models import UserProfile, User
  from .forms import CustomUserCreationForm, CustomUserChangeForm
  
  
  class UserProfileInline(admin.StackedInline):
      model = UserProfile
      can_delete=False
      verbose_plural_name="User Profile"
      fk_name = 'user'  

  class CustomUserAdmin(UserAdmin):
      add_form = CustomUserCreationForm
      form = CustomUserChangeForm
      model = User
      list_display_links = ['email']
      search_fields = ('email',)
      ordering = ('email',)
      # inlines = (UserProfileInline,)
      list_display = ('email', 'is_staff', 'is_active', 'is_superuser',)
      list_filter = ('email', 'is_staff', 'is_active', 'is_superuser', 'user_type')
      fieldsets = (
          (None, {'fields': ('username', 'password')}),
          (_('Personal info'), {'fields': ('first_name', 'last_name', 'email','user_type')}),
          (_('Permissions'), {
              'fields': ('is_active', 'is_staff', 'is_superuser', 'groups', 'user_permissions'),
          }),
          (_('Important dates'), {'fields': ('last_login', 'date_joined')}),
      )
      add_fieldsets = (
          (None, {
              'classes': ('wide',),
              'fields': ('email', 'password1', 'password2', 'is_staff', 'is_active', 'user_type')}
           ),
      )
  
      def get_inline_instances(self, request, obj=None):
          if not obj:
              return list()
          return super(CustomUserAdmin, self).get_inline_instances(request, obj)

   admin.site.register(User, CustomUserAdmin) 

   

Step 6

• You have successfully extended the user model. Lets create an user

• python manage.py createsuperuser
  
  #output
  Email: [email protected]
  Password: ..........
  Password (again): ..........
  Superuser created successfully

• You user should be created by now, login to your admin panel to see.