Django-Rest-Knox

Knox provides easy-to-use authentication for Django REST Framework The aim is to allow for common patterns in applications that are REST based, with little extra effort; and to ensure that connections remain secure.

Knox authentication is token based, similar to the TokenAuthentication built into DRF. However, it overcomes some problems present in the default implementation:

• DRF tokens are limited to one per user. This does not facilitate securely signing in from multiple devices, as the token is shared. It also requires all devices to be logged out if a server-side logout is required (i.e. the token is deleted).

  Knox provides one token per call to the login view - allowing each client to have its own token which is deleted on the server side when the client logs out. Knox also provides an optional setting to limit the amount of tokens generated per user.

  Knox also provides an option for a logged in client to remove all tokens that the server has - forcing all clients to re-authenticate.

• DRF tokens are stored unencrypted in the database. This would allow an attacker unrestricted access to an account with a token if the database were compromised.

  Knox tokens are only stored in an encrypted form. Even if the database were somehow stolen, an attacker would not be able to log in with the stolen credentials.

• DRF tokens track their creation time, but have no inbuilt mechanism for tokens expiring. Knox tokens can have an expiry configured in the app settings (default is 10 hours.)