Staff Only

Part of the Users and Accounts section of Coddy's Django journey. Lesson 12 of 16.

The new page /stats/ counts users and notes. It is for the people who run the site, and any signed in user can open it.

Being signed in is one question; what a user may do is another. User has two flags for the people who run a site: is_staff (may use the admin) and is_superuser (has every permission).

When a signed in user asks for something they may not have, the answer is 403 Forbidden: "I know who you are, and no". In a view, raise PermissionDenied and Django sends the 403. A forum refuses replies to a locked thread:

from django.core.exceptions import PermissionDenied


def thread_reply(request, pk):
    thread = get_object_or_404(Thread, pk=pk)
    if thread.locked:
        raise PermissionDenied
    ...

In a template the flags are on user, so a link can show only to the people allowed to follow it. The link is a convenience; the view's check is the protection.

Challenge

Easy

/stats/ answers 403 Forbidden to every user who is not staff.
In base.html, after New note, a link Stats to it, shown only to staff.

Press Run, log in as ada (staff) and open /stats/. Then try bob. Both use coddy-pass-123.

Try it yourself

from django.contrib.auth import login
from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_not_required
from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404, redirect, render

from .forms import NoteForm
from .models import Note


def note_list(request):
    notes = Note.objects.filter(owner=request.user)
    return render(request, "notes/note_list.html", {"notes": notes})


def note_detail(request, pk):
    note = get_object_or_404(Note, pk=pk, owner=request.user)
    return render(request, "notes/note_detail.html", {"note": note})


def note_create(request):
    if request.method == "POST":
        form = NoteForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            note = form.save(commit=False)
            note.owner = request.user
            note.save()
            return redirect("notes:detail", pk=note.pk)
    else:
        form = NoteForm()
    return render(request, "notes/note_form.html", {"form": form})


def note_edit(request, pk):
    note = get_object_or_404(Note, pk=pk, owner=request.user)
    if request.method == "POST":
        form = NoteForm(request.POST, instance=note)
        if form.is_valid():
            form.save()
            return redirect("notes:detail", pk=note.pk)
    else:
        form = NoteForm(instance=note)
    return render(request, "notes/note_form.html", {"form": form, "note": note})


def note_delete(request, pk):
    note = get_object_or_404(Note, pk=pk, owner=request.user)
    if request.method == "POST":
        note.delete()
        return redirect("notes:list")
    return render(request, "notes/note_confirm_delete.html", {"note": note})


@login_not_required
def signup(request):
    if request.method == "POST":
        form = UserCreationForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            user = form.save()
            login(request, user)
            return redirect("notes:list")
    else:
        form = UserCreationForm()
    return render(request, "notes/signup.html", {"form": form})


def stats(request):
    context = {"user_count": User.objects.count(), "note_count": Note.objects.count()}
    return render(request, "notes/stats.html", context)