Django and Middleware which uses request.user is always Anonymous

Question

I\'m trying to make middleware which alters some fields for the user based on subdomain, etc...

The only problem is the request.user always comes in as AnonymousUser wit

Answer 1

I had the same issue and decided to change my design. Instead of using a Middleware I simply monkey-patch rest_framework.views.APIView.

In my case I needed to patch check_permissions but you can patch whatever fits your problem. Have a look at the the source code.

settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ..
    'myapp',
]

myapp/patching.py

import sys

from rest_framework.views import APIView as OriginalAPIView


class PatchedAPIView(OriginalAPIView):
    def check_permissions(self, request):
        print(f"We should do something with user {request.user}"
        return OriginalAPIView.check_permissions(self, request)


# We replace the Django REST view with our patched one
sys.modules['rest_framework'].views.APIView = PatchedAPIView

myapp/__init__.py

from .patching import *