Getting started

Requirements

• Python (3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11)
• Django (3.2, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2)
• Django REST Framework (3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14)

These are the officially supported python and package versions. Other versions will probably work. You’re free to modify the tox config and see what is possible.

Installation

Simple JWT can be installed with pip:

pip install djangorestframework-simplejwt

Cryptographic Dependencies (Optional)

If you are planning on encoding or decoding tokens using certain digital signature algorithms (i.e. RSA and ECDSA; visit PyJWT for other algorithms), you will need to install the cryptography library. This can be installed explicitly, or as a required extra in the djangorestframework-simplejwt requirement:

pip install djangorestframework-simplejwt[crypto]

The djangorestframework-simplejwt[crypto] format is recommended in requirements files in projects using Simple JWT, as a separate cryptography requirement line may later be mistaken for an unused requirement and removed.

Project Configuration

Then, your django project must be configured to use the library. In settings.py, add rest_framework_simplejwt.authentication.JWTAuthentication to the list of authentication classes:

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    ...
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        ...
        'rest_framework_simplejwt.authentication.JWTAuthentication',
    )
    ...
}

Also, in your root urls.py file (or any other url config), include routes for Simple JWT’s TokenObtainPairView and TokenRefreshView views:

from rest_framework_simplejwt.views import (
    TokenObtainPairView,
    TokenRefreshView,
)

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('api/token/', TokenObtainPairView.as_view(), name='token_obtain_pair'),
    path('api/token/refresh/', TokenRefreshView.as_view(), name='token_refresh'),
    ...
]

You can also include a route for Simple JWT’s TokenVerifyView if you wish to allow API users to verify HMAC-signed tokens without having access to your signing key:

from rest_framework_simplejwt.views import TokenVerifyView

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('api/token/verify/', TokenVerifyView.as_view(), name='token_verify'),
    ...
]

If you wish to use localizations/translations, simply add rest_framework_simplejwt to INSTALLED_APPS.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'rest_framework_simplejwt',
    ...
]

Usage

To verify that Simple JWT is working, you can use curl to issue a couple of test requests:

curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"username": "davidattenborough", "password": "boatymcboatface"}' \
  http://localhost:8000/api/token/

...
{
  "access":"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VyX3BrIjoxLCJ0b2tlbl90eXBlIjoiYWNjZXNzIiwiY29sZF9zdHVmZiI6IuKYgyIsImV4cCI6MTIzNDU2LCJqdGkiOiJmZDJmOWQ1ZTFhN2M0MmU4OTQ5MzVlMzYyYmNhOGJjYSJ9.NHlztMGER7UADHZJlxNG0WSi22a2KaYSfd1S-AuT7lU",
  "refresh":"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VyX3BrIjoxLCJ0b2tlbl90eXBlIjoicmVmcmVzaCIsImNvbGRfc3R1ZmYiOiLimIMiLCJleHAiOjIzNDU2NywianRpIjoiZGUxMmY0ZTY3MDY4NDI3ODg5ZjE1YWMyNzcwZGEwNTEifQ.aEoAYkSJjoWH1boshQAaTkf8G3yn0kapko6HFRt7Rh4"
}

You can use the returned access token to prove authentication for a protected view:

curl \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VyX3BrIjoxLCJ0b2tlbl90eXBlIjoiYWNjZXNzIiwiY29sZF9zdHVmZiI6IuKYgyIsImV4cCI6MTIzNDU2LCJqdGkiOiJmZDJmOWQ1ZTFhN2M0MmU4OTQ5MzVlMzYyYmNhOGJjYSJ9.NHlztMGER7UADHZJlxNG0WSi22a2KaYSfd1S-AuT7lU" \
  http://localhost:8000/api/some-protected-view/

When this short-lived access token expires, you can use the longer-lived refresh token to obtain another access token:

curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"refresh":"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VyX3BrIjoxLCJ0b2tlbl90eXBlIjoicmVmcmVzaCIsImNvbGRfc3R1ZmYiOiLimIMiLCJleHAiOjIzNDU2NywianRpIjoiZGUxMmY0ZTY3MDY4NDI3ODg5ZjE1YWMyNzcwZGEwNTEifQ.aEoAYkSJjoWH1boshQAaTkf8G3yn0kapko6HFRt7Rh4"}' \
  http://localhost:8000/api/token/refresh/

...
{"access":"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VyX3BrIjoxLCJ0b2tlbl90eXBlIjoiYWNjZXNzIiwiY29sZF9zdHVmZiI6IuKYgyIsImV4cCI6MTIzNTY3LCJqdGkiOiJjNzE4ZTVkNjgzZWQ0NTQyYTU0NWJkM2VmMGI0ZGQ0ZSJ9.ekxRxgb9OKmHkfy-zs1Ro_xs1eMLXiR17dIDBVxeT-w"}