Implementing SSO In Your Django Project

For some developers, SSO might still be new to hear on daily purpose, whereas this has been there for a while and we keep using it daily whatever device we use. Google is one of the greatest organization relying on SSO for most services. SSO is an important aspect when it comes to improvement of UX (User Experience). So now the question you should ask yourself is: What is SSO? Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication method that allows users to log in to multiple applications and websites with one set of credentials. SSO Case Study (Google) Before saying a word here, understand that this is just a shallow implementation of the system, I will like this to be a way for you to understand this better and know how to implement something similar to your own usecase. Pay attention to the direction of the arrows and the different services we are pointing to. Without further ado, LET'S CRAFT THIS!!! Implementation This tutorial will cover the implementation of SSO in Django using Google SSO. We will have a few libraries to depend on and the code will be found in a GitHub repo later. Project creation and dependencies installation mkdir django_sso cd django_sso python -m venv .venv source .vevn/bin/activate pip install python-social-auth social-auth-app-django django-admin startproject django_sso . python manage.py startapp accounts touch accounts/urls.py Configuration of settings # django_sso/settings.py INSTALLED_APPS = [ ... 'social_django', ] TEMPLATES = [ #... 'DIRS': [ BASE_DIR / 'templates', ], #... ] AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = ( 'social_core.backends.google.GoogleOAuth2', 'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend', ) SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_KEY = 'your-client-id' SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_SECRET = 'your-client-secret' LOGIN_URL = 'login' LOGOUT_URL = 'logout' LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = 'home'= Views and URLs configurations # accounts/urls.py from django.urls import path, include from accounts.views import login_view, logout_view, home_view, generate_sso_token urlpatterns = [ path('auth/', include('social_django.urls', namespace='social')), path('login/', login_view, name='login'), path('logout/', logout_view, name='logout'), path('home/', home_view, name='home'), path('generate-sso-token/', generate_sso_token, name='generate_sso_token'), ] # django_sso/urls.py from django.contrib import admin from django.urls import path, include urlpatterns = [ path('admin/', admin.site.urls), path('', include('accounts.urls')), ] # accounts/views.py from django.shortcuts import render, redirect from django.contrib.auth import logout from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required from django.utils import timezone from .models import SSOUserToken import uuid def login_view(request): if request.user.is_authenticated: return redirect('home') return render(request, 'login.html') def logout_view(request): logout(request) return redirect('login') @login_required def home_view(request): return render(request, 'home.html') @login_required def generate_sso_token(request): if request.method == 'POST': user = request.user expires_at = timezone.now() + timezone.timedelta(hours=1) token = str(uuid.uuid4()) SSOUserToken.objects.create( user=user, token=token, expires_at=expires_at ) return render(request, 'sso_token.html', {'token': token}) return redirect('home') Let's have a look at the HTML files now. HTML contents Login Login Login with Google Home Welcome, {{ user.username }}! Generate SSO Token Logout SSO Token Your SSO Token {{ token }} Back to Home Results The result might not look same at the time you see this tutorial, the source code has been updates with some more styles. Conclusion I hope you enjoyed crafting Django SSO and understood how much impact it has on UX. Happy CRAFTing. Don't forget to follow for more. Drop your thoughts in the comments section.

Mar 29, 2025 - 16:02

For some developers, SSO might still be new to hear on daily purpose, whereas this has been there for a while and we keep using it daily whatever device we use. Google is one of the greatest organization relying on SSO for most services. SSO is an important aspect when it comes to improvement of UX (User Experience). So now the question you should ask yourself is:

What is SSO?

Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication method that allows users to log in to multiple applications and websites with one set of credentials.

SSO Case Study (Google)

Before saying a word here, understand that this is just a shallow implementation of the system, I will like this to be a way for you to understand this better and know how to implement something similar to your own usecase.

Pay attention to the direction of the arrows and the different services we are pointing to. Without further ado, LET'S CRAFT THIS!!!

Implementation

This tutorial will cover the implementation of SSO in Django using Google SSO. We will have a few libraries to depend on and the code will be found in a GitHub repo later.

Project creation and dependencies installation

mkdir django_sso

cd django_sso

python -m venv .venv

source .vevn/bin/activate

pip install python-social-auth social-auth-app-django

django-admin startproject django_sso .

python manage.py startapp accounts

touch accounts/urls.py

Configuration of settings

# django_sso/settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'social_django',
]

TEMPLATES = [
 #...
        'DIRS': [
            BASE_DIR / 'templates',
        ],
 #...
]

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'social_core.backends.google.GoogleOAuth2',
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',
)

SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_KEY = 'your-client-id'
SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_SECRET = 'your-client-secret'
LOGIN_URL = 'login'
LOGOUT_URL = 'logout'
LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = 'home'=

Views and URLs configurations

# accounts/urls.py
from django.urls import path, include
from accounts.views import login_view, logout_view, home_view, generate_sso_token

urlpatterns = [
    path('auth/', include('social_django.urls', namespace='social')),
    path('login/', login_view, name='login'),
    path('logout/', logout_view, name='logout'),
    path('home/', home_view, name='home'),
    path('generate-sso-token/', generate_sso_token, name='generate_sso_token'),
]

# django_sso/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('accounts.urls')),
]

# accounts/views.py
from django.shortcuts import render, redirect
from django.contrib.auth import logout
from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from django.utils import timezone
from .models import SSOUserToken
import uuid

def login_view(request):
    if request.user.is_authenticated:
        return redirect('home')
    return render(request, 'login.html')

def logout_view(request):
    logout(request)
    return redirect('login')

@login_required
def home_view(request):
    return render(request, 'home.html')

@login_required
def generate_sso_token(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        user = request.user
        expires_at = timezone.now() + timezone.timedelta(hours=1)
        token = str(uuid.uuid4())
        SSOUserToken.objects.create(
            user=user,
            token=token,
            expires_at=expires_at
        )
        return render(request, 'sso_token.html', {'token': token})
    return redirect('home')

Let's have a look at the HTML files now.

HTML contents





    </span>Login<span class="nt">


    Login
     href="{% url 'social:begin' 'google-oauth2' %}">Login with Google








    </span>Home<span class="nt">


    Welcome, {{ user.username }}!
     href="{% url 'generate_sso_token' %}">Generate SSO Token
     href="{% url 'logout' %}">Logout








    </span>SSO Token<span class="nt">


    Your SSO Token
    {{ token }}
     href="{% url 'home' %}">Back to Home

Results

The result might not look same at the time you see this tutorial, the source code has been updates with some more styles.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed crafting Django SSO and understood how much impact it has on UX. Happy CRAFTing. Don't forget to follow for more. Drop your thoughts in the comments section.