DRF Simple Access Key

A library that provides a simple token authorization for Django REST framework.

Installation

With a correctly configured pipenv toolchain:

pipenv install drf-simple-access-key

You may also use classic pip to install the package:

pip install drf-simple-access-key

Auto-formatter setup

We use isort (https://github.com/pycqa/isort) and black (https://github.com/psf/black) for local auto-formatting and for linting in the CI pipeline. The pre-commit framework (https://pre-commit.com) provides GIT hooks for these tools, so they are automatically applied before every commit.

Steps to activate:

• Install the pre-commit framework: pip install pre-commit (for alternative installation options see https://pre-commit.com/#install)
• Activate the framework (from the root directory of the repository): pre-commit install

Hint: You can also run the formatters manually at any time with the following command: pre-commit run --all-files

Getting started

Configuration options

HTTP_AUTHORIZATION_HEADER: str

Default: 'x-authorization'

Name of the HTTP request header used for authorization.

HTTP_AUTHORIZATION_SCHEME: str

Default: 'bearer'

Name of the HTTP authorization scheme.

AUTHORIZATION_KEYS: list[str]

Default: []

List of valid authorization keys. Note that any request is allowed if this configuration option is empty!

Example configuration for Django settings

SIMPLE_ACCESS_KEY_SETTINGS = {
    'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION_HEADER': 'x-authorization',
    'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION_SCHEME': 'bearer',
    'AUTHORIZATION_KEYS': [
        'example-token-1234',
    ],
}

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    # ...
    'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
        'drf_simple_access_key.SimpleAccessKey',
        # ...
    ],
    # ...
}

How to use

All API endpoints that use the permission class are protected by the simple access key authorization.

GET http://my.tld/api/v1/resource/
x-authorization: bearer example-token-1234

When to use

This library provides the simplest possible solution to protect a REST API from unauthorized access. It allows anyone in possession of a valid key to access the endpoints without the possibility of user authentication. This type of authorization is well suited for microservices that users cannot access directly.

In summary this means:
✔️ Use this authorization only if access to the REST API is possible from known and trusted sources only (e.g. an API gateway).
✔️ Use this authorization only if no user authentication is required within the REST API.
❌ Never use this authorization if the REST API is publicly accessible over the Internet.
❌ Never use this authorization if the consumers of the REST API are real users, and not exclusively systems such as an API gateway.

Supported versions

	Django REST framework 3.14	Django REST framework 3.15
Python 3.9	✓	✓
Python 3.10	✓	✓
Python 3.11	✓	✓
Python 3.12	✓	✓
Python 3.13	✓	✓

Tests

See folder tests/. Basically, all endpoints are covered with multiple unit tests.

Follow below instructions to run the tests. You may exchange the installed Django and DRF versions according to your requirements. :warning: Depending on your local environment settings you might need to explicitly call python3 instead of python.

# install dependencies
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

# setup environment
pip install -e .

# run tests
cd tests && python manage.py test

List of developers

• Andreas Stocker [email protected]
• Harald Nezbeda [email protected]