Rest Framework Integration

Setup

When using Django Rest Framework, you can authenticate your REST API clients using Microsoft Entra ID tokens. This requires some additional configuration beyond the basic setup.

You’ll need to install djangorestframework (or add it to your project dependencies):

pip install djangorestframework

The authentication backend will validate Entra ID access tokens for API requests.

Configuration Steps

1. Add the authentication class to Django Rest Framework in settings.py:

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'django_entra_auth.rest_framework.AdfsAccessTokenAuthentication',
        'rest_framework.authentication.SessionAuthentication',
    )
}

2. Enable the token authentication backend in settings.py:

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    ...
    'django_entra_auth.backend.AdfsAccessTokenBackend',
    ...
)

3. Prevent your API from triggering a login redirect:

ENTRA_AUTH = {
    'LOGIN_EXEMPT_URLS': [
        '^api',  # Assuming your API is available at /api
    ],
}

4. (Optional) Override the standard Django Rest Framework login pages in your main urls.py:

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    # The default rest framework urls shouldn't be included
    # If we include them, we'll end up with the DRF login page,
    # instead of being redirected to the Entra ID login page.
    #
    # path('api-auth/', include('rest_framework.urls')),
    #
    # This overrides the DRF login page
    path('oauth2/', include('django_entra_auth.drf_urls')),
    ...
]

Accessing the API

To access your API, clients need to obtain an access token from Microsoft Entra ID. Here’s an example using the client credentials flow:

import requests
from pprint import pprint

# Get an access token from Microsoft Entra ID
payload = {
    "grant_type": "client_credentials",
    "scope": "api://<your-application-id>/.default",
    "client_id": "<your-application-id>",
    "client_secret": "<your-client-secret>"
}
response = requests.post(
    "https://login.microsoftonline.com/<your-tenant-id>/oauth2/v2.0/token",
    data=payload
)
response.raise_for_status()
response_data = response.json()
access_token = response_data['access_token']

# Make a request to your API using the access token
headers = {
    'Accept': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + access_token,
}
response = requests.get(
    'https://your-api.example.com/api/endpoint',
    headers=headers
)
pprint(response.json())

For more information on obtaining tokens and configuring API permissions, refer to: * Microsoft identity platform and OAuth 2.0 client credentials flow * The token_lifecycle documentation for managing tokens in your Django application