How can I use Django permissions without defining a content type or model?

Question

I\'d like to use a permissions based system to restrict certain actions within my Django application. These actions need not be related to a particular model (e.g. access to sec

Answer 1

Following Gonzalo's advice, I used a proxy model and a custom manager to handle my "modelless" permissions with a dummy content type.

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType


class GlobalPermissionManager(models.Manager):
    def get_query_set(self):
        return super(GlobalPermissionManager, self).\
            get_query_set().filter(content_type__name='global_permission')


class GlobalPermission(Permission):
    """A global permission, not attached to a model"""

    objects = GlobalPermissionManager()

    class Meta:
        proxy = True

    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        ct, created = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
            name="global_permission", app_label=self._meta.app_label
        )
        self.content_type = ct
        super(GlobalPermission, self).save(*args, **kwargs)