Test-Driven Development with Python

Chapter 16. Server-Side Authentication and Mocking in Python

Let’s crack on with the server side of our new auth system. In this chapter we’ll do some more mocking, this time with Python. We’ll also find out about how to customise Django’s authentication system.

A Look at Our Spiked Login View

At the end of the last chapter, we had a working client side that was trying to send authentication assertions to our server’s login view. Let’s start by building that view, and then move inwards to build the backend authentication functions.

Here’s the spiked version of our login view:

def persona_login(request):
    print('login view', file=sys.stderr)
    #user = PersonaAuthenticationBackend().authenticate(request.POST['assertion'])
    user = authenticate(assertion=request.POST['assertion'])  #
    if user is not None:
        login(request, user)  #
    return redirect('/')

authenticate is our customised authentication function, which we’ll de-spike later. Its job is to take the assertion from the client side and validate it.

login is Django’s built-in login function. It stores a session object on the server, tied to ...