Django Axes
django-axes
is a very simple way for you to keep track of failed login
attempts, both for the Django admin and for the rest of your site. The name is
sort of a geeky pun, since axes
can be read interpreted as:
- "access", as in monitoring access attempts
- "axes", as in tools you can use hack (generally on wood). In this case, however, the "hacking" part of it can be taken a bit further:
django-axes
is intended to help you stop people from hacking (popular media definition) your website. Hilarious, right? That's what I thought too!
Requirements
django-axes
requires Django 1.0 or later. The application is intended to
work around the Django admin and the regular django.contrib.auth
login-powered pages.
Installation
Download and install django-axes
using one of the following methods:
PIP
You can install the latest stable package running this command:
$ pip install django-axes
Also you can install the development version running this command:
$ pip install -e git+http://github.com/codekoala/django-axes.git#egg=django_axes-dev
Setuptools
You can install the latest stable package running:
$ easy_install django-axes
Verifying Installation
The easiest way to ensure that you have successfully installed django-axes
is to execute a command such as:
python -c "import axes; print axes.get_version()"
If that command completes with some sort of version number, you're probably
good to go. If you see error output, you need to check your installation (I'd
start with your PYTHONPATH
).
Development
You can contribute to this project forking it from github and sending pull requests.
Running tests
Tests can be run, after you clone the repository and having django installed, like:
$ PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$PWD django-admin.py test axes --settings=axes.test_settings
Configuration
First of all, you must add this project to your list of INSTALLED_APPS
in
settings.py
:
INSTALLED_APPS = ( 'django.contrib.admin', 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', 'django.contrib.sessions', 'django.contrib.sites', ... 'axes', ... )
Next, install the FailedLoginMiddleware
middleware:
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = ( 'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware', 'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware', 'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware', 'axes.middleware.FailedLoginMiddleware' )
Run python manage.py syncdb
. This creates the appropriate tables in your database
that are necessary for operation.
Customizing Axes
You have a couple options available to you to customize django-axes
a bit.
These should be defined in your settings.py
file.
AXES_LOGIN_FAILURE_LIMIT
: The number of login attempts allowed before a record is created for the failed logins. Default:3
AXES_LOCK_OUT_AT_FAILURE
: After the number of allowed login attempts are exceeded, should we lock out this IP (and optional user agent)? Default:True
AXES_USE_USER_AGENT
: IfTrue
, lock out / log based on an IP address AND a user agent. This means requests from different user agents but from the same IP are treated differently. Default:False
AXES_COOLOFF_TIME
: If set, defines a period of inactivity after which old failed login attempts will be forgotten. Can be set to a python timedelta object or an integer. If an integer, will be interpreted as a number of hours. Default:None
AXES_LOGGER
: If set, specifies a logging mechanism for axes to use. Default:'axes.watch_login'
AXES_LOCKOUT_TEMPLATE
: If set, specifies a template to render when a user is locked out. Template receives cooloff_time and failure_limit as context variables. Default:None
AXES_LOCKOUT_URL
: If set, specifies a URL to redirect to on lockout. If both AXES_LOCKOUT_TEMPLATE and AXES_LOCKOUT_URL are set, the template will be used. Default:None
AXES_VERBOSE
: IfTrue
, you'll see slightly more logging for Axes. Default:True
Usage
Using django-axes
is extremely simple. Once you install the application
and the middleware, all you need to do is periodically check the Access
Attempts section of the admin. A log file is also created for you to keep
track of the events surrounding failed login attempts. This log file can be
found in your Django project directory, by the name of axes.log
. In the
future I plan on offering a way to customize options for logging a bit more.
By default, django-axes will lock out repeated attempts from the same IP
address. You can allow this IP to attempt again by deleting the relevant
AccessAttempt
records in the admin.
You can also use the axes_reset
management command (since 1.2.5-rc1). Using Django's
manage.py
.
manage.py axes_reset
will reset all lockouts and access records.manage.py axes_reset ip
will clear lockout/records for ip
In your code, you can use from axes.utils import reset
.
reset()
will reset all lockouts and access records.reset(ip)
will clear lockout/records for ip
reset
will print a message to std out if there is nothing to reset,
unless called with silent = True