RESTFUL web services consumed by web and native mobile apps with authentication in python using django framework

Question

I have to write RESTFUL web-services with authentication in python using django framework which will be consumed by web based clients and mobile native apps (Android and IOS).

Answer 1

I've used OAUTH2, which is simpler to implement than OAUTH, but needs SSL to actually make it secure.

Since I've used DJANGO REST Framework, you can find the setup, here.

Answer 2

I've done it with the api key exchange, like you said and used SSL. Worked fine. There are some caveats to make https requests work right on Android.

private static HttpClient newHttpClient() {
    KeyStore trustStore = KeyStore.getInstance(KeyStore.getDefaultType());
    trustStore.load(null, null);

    SSLSocketFactory sf = new EasySSLSocketFactory(trustStore);
    sf.setHostnameVerifier(SSLSocketFactory.ALLOW_ALL_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER);

    HttpParams params = new BasicHttpParams();
    HttpProtocolParams.setVersion(params, HttpVersion.HTTP_1_1);
    HttpProtocolParams.setContentCharset(params, HTTP.UTF_8);

    SchemeRegistry registry = new SchemeRegistry();
    registry.register(new Scheme("http", PlainSocketFactory.getSocketFactory(), 80));
    registry.register(new Scheme("https", sf, 443));

    ClientConnectionManager ccm = new ThreadSafeClientConnManager(params, registry);
    return new DefaultHttpClient(ccm, params);
}

Answer 3

You can write RESTful web service with the python standard library, third party libraries are not absolutely necessary.

You should read more about what defines a RESTful service, and start implementing it yourself.

For what it's worth, I use cherrypy as a light framework in a few projects. It's simple and easy to use. The website even has a section about how to implement REST in your application.