django-cas-dev-server

Extends the Django development server to include a local CAS server.

Dependencies

Requires Django 1.7 or later. Also requires django-environ and MamaCAS; pip will install these automatically.

Installation

Download from the Python Package Index with pip install django-cas-dev-server. Or download the source from GitHub and install with python setup.py install.

Quick Start Guide

1. Install django-cas-dev-server, as explained above.

2. Add the following to the end of your Django project's settings module:

   if DEBUG:
       INSTALLED_APPS = ('cas_dev_server',) + INSTALLED_APPS
       CAS_DEV_DATABASE = {
           'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
           'NAME': 'cas_db.sqlite3',
       }

3. Set the URL for the CAS server to use in development (for instance, CAS_SERVER_URL if you're using Django CAS NG) to http://localhost:8008/.
4. Run python manage.py casdevmanage migrate.
5. Run python manage.py casdevmanage createsuperuser and create a superuser at the interactive prompt.
6. Start the development server with python manage.py runserver, just like always.

Slightly More Advanced Configuration

django-cas-dev-server provides a pluggable Django app, cas_dev_server. This app has no models or views. Instead, it defines two django-admin commands, casdevmanage and runserver, and makes use of one new project setting, CAS_DEV_DATABASE.

CAS_DEV_DATABASE should be a configuration dictionary for a database that will contain the credentials of your CAS users. This is separate from your Django project's main database. Since you're only using it for development, SQLite should work fine.

casdevmanage should be followed by the name of another django-admin command, along with any legal arguments and/or options for that command. It will run that command using the settings of the CAS development server, rather than your project. For instance, casdevmanage migrate installs the database tables for Django's authentication app into the database specified in CAS_DEV_DATABASE.

runserver overrides the command of the same name from the staticfiles app, or, if you're not using the staticfiles app, from Django's core set of commands. It supports two new options in addition to the existing ones:

• --nocas disables the CAS development server.
• --cas-port specifies which port to run the CAS server on. This needs to be different from the port the main development server runs on. By default, port 8008 is used.

If you're using the staticfiles app, cas_dev_server must precede django.contrib.staticfiles in INSTALLED_APPS so that django-cas-dev-server's implementation of runserver takes precedence.

When the development server is run, it starts the CAS server in a subprocess. Logging output from both servers will be visible on the console. The CONTROL-C keyboard interrupt that stops the development server will also stop the CAS server.

The CAS server has its own deployment of the Django admin interface, accessible through the /admin/ URL (for instance, http://localhost:8008/admin/). A user's permissions level in the CAS database affects whether they can log into the admin interface; it has no connection with their permissions in your Django project. (Consequently, you'll probably have to run both createsuperuser and casdevmanage createsuperuser, giving the same username to both users, to ensure that you can log into your main project as a superuser.) After creating the initial superuser, the easiest way to create additional CAS users is through the admin interface.