How to make authenticated django rest api call from android client?

Question

I am making an android app which has a django rest api as the backend and want to make authenticated network calls using the token given to the user when he/she has logged in.

I am using retrofit to make requests to the backend. Here is what I am doing right now to attempt to make an authenticated network call to the rest api.

@Override
public void loadAllUsers() {
    Call<List<User>> call = userServiceApi.loadAllUsers();
    call.enqueue(new Callback<List<User>>() {
        @Override
        public void onResponse(@NonNull Call<List<User>> call, @NonNull Response<List<User>> response) {
            if (response.isSuccessful()) {
                List<User> users = response.body();
                eventBus.post(new LoadAllUsersEvent(users));
            } else {
                eventBus.post(new FailLoadAllUsersEvent());
                Log.d(TAG, response.message());
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void onFailure(@NonNull Call<List<User>> call, @NonNull Throwable t) {
            eventBus.post(new LoadUsersUnreachableServerEvent());
            Log.d(TAG, t.toString());
        }
    });
}

Here is the retrofit interface relevant to this api request:

@GET("users/")
Call<List<User>> loadAllUsers(@Header("Authorization: Token ") Token token);

When I make this call passing the user's token in as the header, I get status code 401: Unauthenticated: "GET /users/ HTTP/1.1" 401 58

What am I doing wrong for django rest Token Authentication to work and to make an authenticated django rest api call?

Are you using OkHttp as well?

Andrej Jurkin
– Andrej Jurkin

2017-07-25 14:06:32 +00:00
Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 14:06 — Andrej Jurkin
– Andrej Jurkin, Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 14:06
No I am not using OkHttp.

Tom Finet
– Tom Finet

2017-07-25 14:12:42 +00:00
Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 14:12 — Tom Finet
– Tom Finet, Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 14:12

Andrej Jurkin · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-25 14:17:35Z

4

The quick fix for this would be to change your api interface:

@GET("users/")
Call<List<User>> loadAllUsers(@Header("Authorization") Token token);

Value you are passing in should be formated as "Token %s".

This is not a very good solution, because you'd have to pass the token around to all of your api calls.

Better way to solve your authorization issues is by using OkHttp client and implement authenticator, which takes care of everything for you.

OkHttp and Retrofit work together very well.

answered Jul 25, 2017 at 14:17

Andrej Jurkin

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5 Comments

Andrej Jurkin Over a year ago

This is a good one futurestud.io/tutorials/…, but it's for retrofit 1. The only difference is that RestAdapter was renamed to Retrofit. Of course I suggest using the latest versions of OkHttp and Retrofit.

Tom Finet Over a year ago

So should the authentication header contain "Token %s" instead of "Authorization" because I have implemented that with OkHttp and it says "Unexpected char 0x20 in 5 in header name: Token %s" @Andrej Jurkin

Andrej Jurkin Over a year ago

Hey Tom, headers are key-value pair. Key is "Authorization" value is what you pass into your retrofit interface and the string should be "Token 0b79bab50daca910b000d4f1a2b675d604257e42". Something like that.

Tom Finet Over a year ago

Now I get another error. java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_ARRAY but was BEGIN_OBJECT at line 1 column 2 path $. It runs the onFailure method instead of onResponse

Andrej Jurkin Over a year ago

This means your request goes through and fails when parsing. Your authentication problem has been solved. Please close the question and continue seeking answers elsewhere.

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