---
title: "How to authenticate using REMOTE_USER"
version: 6.0
locale: en
source: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/6.0/howto/auth-remote-user/
canonical: https://djangodocs.dev/en/6.0/howto/auth-remote-user/
---
# How to authenticate using `REMOTE_USER`

This document describes how to make use of external authentication sources in
your Django applications. This type of authentication solution is typically
seen on intranet sites, with single sign-on solutions such as IIS and
Integrated Windows Authentication or Apache and [mod\_authnz\_ldap](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_authnz_ldap.html), [CAS](https://www.apereo.org/projects/cas),
[WebAuth](https://uit.stanford.edu/service/authentication), [mod\_auth\_sspi](https://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-auth-sspi), etc.

When the web server takes care of authentication it typically provides the
authenticated user as `REMOTE_USER`. In Django, this value is made available
in [`request.META`](/en/6.0/ref/request-response/#django.http.HttpRequest.META) (as `REMOTE_USER` when
supplied as an environment variable, as in WSGI, or `HTTP_REMOTE_USER` when
supplied via an HTTP header, as in ASGI). Django can be configured to make use
of the `REMOTE_USER` value using the `RemoteUserMiddleware` or
`PersistentRemoteUserMiddleware`, and
[`RemoteUserBackend`](/en/6.0/ref/contrib/auth/#django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend) classes found in
[`django.contrib.auth`](/en/6.0/topics/auth/#module-django.contrib.auth).

## Configuration

First, you must add the
[`django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware`](/en/6.0/ref/middleware/#django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware) to the
[`MIDDLEWARE`](/en/6.0/ref/settings/#std-setting-MIDDLEWARE) setting **after** the
[`django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware`](/en/6.0/ref/middleware/#django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware):

```
MIDDLEWARE = [
    "...",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware",
    "...",
]
```

Next, you must replace the [`ModelBackend`](/en/6.0/ref/contrib/auth/#django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend)
with [`RemoteUserBackend`](/en/6.0/ref/contrib/auth/#django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend) in the
[`AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS`](/en/6.0/ref/settings/#std-setting-AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS) setting:

```
AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    "django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend",
]
```

With this setup, `RemoteUserMiddleware` will detect the username in
`request.META['REMOTE_USER']` (or `request.META['HTTP_REMOTE_USER']` under
ASGI) and will authenticate and auto-login that user
using the [`RemoteUserBackend`](/en/6.0/ref/contrib/auth/#django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend).

Be aware that this particular setup disables authentication with the default
`ModelBackend`. This means that if the `REMOTE_USER` value is not set
then the user is unable to log in, even using Django’s admin interface.
Adding `'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend'` to the
`AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS` list will use `ModelBackend` as a fallback
if `REMOTE_USER` is absent, which will solve these issues.

Django’s user management, such as the views in `contrib.admin` and
the [`createsuperuser`](/en/6.0/ref/django-admin/#django-admin-createsuperuser) management command, doesn’t integrate with
remote users. These interfaces work with users stored in the database
regardless of `AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS`.

> **Note**
>
> Since the `RemoteUserBackend` inherits from `ModelBackend`, you will
> still have all of the same permissions checking that is implemented in
> `ModelBackend`.
>
> Users with [`is_active=False`](/en/6.0/ref/contrib/auth/#django.contrib.auth.models.User.is_active) won’t be allowed to
> authenticate. Use
> [`AllowAllUsersRemoteUserBackend`](/en/6.0/ref/contrib/auth/#django.contrib.auth.backends.AllowAllUsersRemoteUserBackend) if
> you want to allow them to.

If your authentication mechanism uses a custom HTTP header and not
`REMOTE_USER`, you can subclass `RemoteUserMiddleware` and set the
`header` attribute to the desired `request.META` key. For example:

*`mysite/middleware.py`*

```python
 from django.contrib.auth.middleware import RemoteUserMiddleware

 class CustomHeaderRemoteUserMiddleware(RemoteUserMiddleware):
     header = "HTTP_AUTHUSER"
```

This custom middleware is then used in the [`MIDDLEWARE`](/en/6.0/ref/settings/#std-setting-MIDDLEWARE) setting
instead of [`django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware`](/en/6.0/ref/middleware/#django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware):

```
MIDDLEWARE = [
    "...",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "mysite.middleware.CustomHeaderRemoteUserMiddleware",
    "...",
]
```

> **Warning**
>
> `RemoteUserMiddleware` must not be deployed in configurations where a
> client can supply the header. You must be sure that your web server or
> reverse proxy always sets or strips that header based on the appropriate
> authentication checks, never permitting an end user to submit a fake (or
> “spoofed”) header value.
>
> Since the HTTP headers `X-Auth-User` and `X-Auth_User` (for example)
> both normalize to the `HTTP_X_AUTH_USER` key in `request.META`, you
> must also check that your web server doesn’t allow a spoofed header using
> underscores in place of dashes.
>
> Under WSGI, this warning doesn’t apply to `RemoteUserMiddleware` in its
> default configuration with `header = "REMOTE_USER"`, since a key that
> doesn’t start with `HTTP_` in `request.META` can only be set by your
> WSGI server, not directly from an HTTP request header.
>
> This warning applies under ASGI in all configurations, because there is
> no equivalent for a WSGI server’s ability to place a trusted value in the
> environ. ASGI deployments *must* use a reverse proxy as described above
> when using this middleware.

If you need more control, you can create your own authentication backend
that inherits from [`RemoteUserBackend`](/en/6.0/ref/contrib/auth/#django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend) and
override one or more of its attributes and methods.

## Using `REMOTE_USER` on login pages only

The `RemoteUserMiddleware` authentication middleware assumes that the HTTP
request header `REMOTE_USER` is present with all authenticated requests. That
might be expected and practical when Basic HTTP Auth with `htpasswd` or
similar mechanisms are used, but with Negotiate (GSSAPI/Kerberos) or other
resource intensive authentication methods, the authentication in the front-end
HTTP server is usually only set up for one or a few login URLs, and after
successful authentication, the application is supposed to maintain the
authenticated session itself.

[`PersistentRemoteUserMiddleware`](/en/6.0/ref/middleware/#django.contrib.auth.middleware.PersistentRemoteUserMiddleware)
provides support for this use case. It will maintain the authenticated session
until explicit logout by the user. The class can be used as a drop-in
replacement of [`RemoteUserMiddleware`](/en/6.0/ref/middleware/#django.contrib.auth.middleware.RemoteUserMiddleware)
in the documentation above.