# django-cancan
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`django-cancan` is an authorization library for Django. It works on top of default Django permissions and allows to restrict the resources (models and objects) a given user can access.
This library is inspired by [cancancan](https://github.com/CanCanCommunity/cancancan) for Ruby on Rails.
## Key features
- All of your permissions logic is kept in one place. User permissions are defined in a single function and not scattered across views,
querysets, etc.
- Same permissions logic is used to check permissions on a single model instance and to generate queryset containing all instances that the user can access
- Easy unit testing
- Integration with built-in Django default permissions system and Django admin (coming soon)
- Intergration with Django Rest Framework (coming soon)
## How to install
Using `pip`:
```
pip install django-cancan
```
## Quick start
1. Add `cancan` to your `INSTALLED_APPS` setting like this:
```python
INSTALLED_APPS = [
...,
'cancan',
]
```
2. Create a function that define the access rules for a given user. For example, create `abilities.py` in `myapp` module:
```python
def define_access_rules(user, rules):
# Anybody can view published articles
rules.allow('view', Article, published=True)
if not user.is_authenticated:
return
# Allow logged in user to view his own articles, regardless of the `published` status
# allow accepts the same kwargs that you would provide to QuerySet.filter method
rules.allow('view', Article, author=user)
if user.has_perm('article.view_unpublished'):
# You can also check for custom model permissions (i.e. view_unpublished)
rules.allow('view', Article, published=False)
if user.is_superuser:
# Superuser gets unlimited access to all articles
rules.allow('add', Article)
rules.allow('view', Article)
rules.allow('change', Article)
rules.allow('delete', Article)
```
3. In `settings.py` add `CANCAN` section, so that `cancan` library will know where to search for `define_access_rules` function from the previous step:
```python
CANCAN = {
'ABILITIES': 'myapp.abilities.define_access_rules'
}
```
The `define_access_rules` function will be executed automatically per each request by the `cancan` middleware. The middleware will call the function to determine the abilities of a current user.
Let's add `cancan` middleware, just after `AuthenticationMiddleware`:
```python
MIDDLEWARE = [
...
'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
'cancan.middleware.CanCanMiddleware',
...
]
```
By adding the middleware you will also get an access to `request.ability` instance which you can use
to:
- check model permissions,
- check object permissions,
- generate model querysets (i.e. when inheriting from `ListView`)
4. Check for abilities in views:
```python
class ArticleListView(ListView):
model = Article
def get_queryset():
# this is how you can retrieve all objects that current user can access
qs = self.request.ability.queryset_for('view', Article)
return qs
class ArticleDetailView(PermissionRequiredMixin, DetailView):
queryset = Article.objects.all()
def has_permission(self):
article = self.get_object()
# this is how you can check if user can access an object
return self.request.ability.can('view', article)
```
5. Check for abilities in templates
You can also check for abilities in template files, i. e. to show/hide/disable buttons or links.
First you need to add `cancan` processor to `context_processors` in `TEMPLATES` section of `settings.py`:
```python
TEMPLATES = [
{
...,
"OPTIONS": {
"context_processors": [
...,
"cancan.context_processors.abilities",
],
},
},
]
```
This will give you access to `ability` object in a template. You also need add `{% load cancan_tags %}` at the beginning
of the template file.
Next you can check for object permissions:
```
{% load cancan_tags %}
...
{% if ability|can:"change"|subject:article %}
<a href="{% url 'article_edit' pk=article.id %}">Edit article</a>
{% endif %}
```
or model permissions:
```
{% if ability|can:"add"|"myapp.Article" %}
<a href="{% url 'article_new' %}">Create new article</a>
{% endif %}
```
You can also use `can` template tag to create a reusable variable:
```
{% can "add" "core.Project" as can_add_project %}
...
{% if can_add_project %}
...
{% endif %}
```
## Checking for abilities in Django Rest Framework
Let's start by creating a pemission class:
```python
from rest_framework import permissions
def set_aliases_for_drf_actions(ability):
"""
map DRF actions to default Django permissions
"""
ability.access_rules.alias_action("list", "view")
ability.access_rules.alias_action("retrieve", "view")
ability.access_rules.alias_action("create", "add")
ability.access_rules.alias_action("update", "change")
ability.access_rules.alias_action("partial_update", "change")
ability.access_rules.alias_action("destroy", "delete")
class AbilityPermission(permissions.BasePermission):
def has_permission(self, request, view=None):
ability = request.ability
set_aliases_for_drf_actions(ability)
return ability.can(view.action, view.get_queryset().model)
def has_object_permission(self, request, view, obj):
ability = request.ability
set_aliases_for_drf_actions(ability)
return ability.can(view.action, obj)
```
Next, secure the ViewSet with `AbilityPermission` and override `get_queryset` method to list objects based on the access rights.
```python
class ArticleViewset(ModelViewSet):
permission_classes = [AbilityPermission]
def get_queryset(self):
return self.request.ability.queryset_for(self.action, Article).distinct()
```
## `ability.queryset_for` and `rules.allow` explained
When executing `rules.allow` you specify 2 positional arguments: `action` and `subject`. Any additional parameters passed to allow will filter
the results in the same way as for Django `QuerySet.fiter` method.
Let's say that we have the following models in `core.models.py`:
```python
class Project(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=128)
description = models.TextField(default="", blank=True)
members = models.ManyToManyField(User, through="Membership")
created_by = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name="owner")
class Membership(models.Model):
user = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
project = models.ForeignKey(Project, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
```
If you have the following rules:
```
rules.allow('view', Project, name="Foo")
```
then executing:
```
ability.queryset_for('view', Project)
```
will result in the following query:
```
SELECT "core_project"."id", "core_project"."name", "core_project"."description", "core_project"."created_by_id" FROM "core_project" WHERE "core_project"."name" = Foo
```
Similarly, `rules.allow('view', Project, name="Foo", description__contains="Bar")`
will generate a query:
```
SELECT "core_project"."id", "core_project"."name", "core_project"."description", "core_project"."created_by_id" FROM "core_project" WHERE ("core_project"."description" LIKE %Bar% ESCAPE '\' AND "core_project"."name" = Foo)
```
Multiple rules for the same action and model will result in OR'ed queries, i.e.:
```
rules.allow('view', Project, name="Foo")
rules.allow('view', Project, description__contains="Bar")
```
will generate a query:
```
SELECT "core_project"."id", "core_project"."name", "core_project"."description", "core_project"."created_by_id" FROM "core_project" WHERE ("core_project"."description" LIKE %Bar% ESCAPE '\' OR "core_project"."name" = Foo)
```
See [example_project/cancan_playground.ipynb](example_project/cancan_playground.ipynb) for more examples.
## Sponsors
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