How to Generate a New Secret Key in Django
In Django, a secret key plays a vital role in enhancing the security of your application. It helps manage user sessions, protects against Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks, and safeguards your data by generating and verifying cryptographic signatures among other things.
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How Can Your Django Secret Key Be Exposed?
You can accidentally make your Django secret key public if you unknowingly commit it to git or a similar source code repository. This mistake is common among new programmers who are stilllearning about GitHub. When it happens, you can do one of the following:
Deleting the commit might not be the best option because the commit history can still be accessible through various means, such as cached copies on GitHub or other distributed systems. The safest thing to do in such a situation is to assume your secret key is already compromised.
You should generate a new secret key to replace the compromised one and protect it by using environment variables. In any case, you should learn how to generate a new secret key in Django to protect your app from things likeCross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks.
Django provides a function calledget_random_secret_key()that helps you generate a new secret key whenever you call it. The get_random_secret_key() function is a utility function that uses thesecretsmodule in Python to generate a secure secret key of 50 characters.
To generate a new secret key with the get_random_secret_key() function, open yourCommand Line Interface (CLI)and type this command:
The above command imports the get_random_secret_key() function fromdjango.core.management.utilsand then prints out a new secret key of 50 characters, which you can use in your project. Before running the above command, ensure that you are in the root directory of your project, i.e., the same location as themanage.pyfile in your project.
You can run the same command outside your CLI by creating a Python file and pasting this code snippet in it:
You can run the code by typing this in your CLI:
The command above should print out a new secret key of 50 characters that you can use in your project.
How to Protect Your Secret Key With Environment Variables
You probably don’t want to be changing your secret key every time you make a GitHub commit. An efficient way to keep your secret key safe is by storing it in an environment variable. Environment variables are values you can set outside of your codebase, that your program can still access during runtime. They can store configuration, API keys, database credentials, etc.
you could store your environment variables in a file named .env and exclude them from your git repository. You can do this by creating a file called.gitignorein your project. The .gitignore file contains a list of files and folders that Git will not track.
File types and directory structures vary from project to project, but there are sensible defaults you can apply for each language. You can find a list of .gitignore templates inGitHub’s gitignore repository. The following steps show you how to use the .gitignore file with environment variables in Django.
1. Create a .gitignore File
In your base directory—the location of yourmanage.pyfile—create a.gitignorefile and copy the contents of thisGitHub fileinto it. That file is a sample .gitignore for Python projects which excludes common files that you won’t want in your repository.
Alternatively, you can add a .gitignore file to your project while creating a repository on GitHub. To do that, click on theAdd .gitignoreoption, search for Python, and select it.
2. Create a .env File
In your base directory, create a file called.env. This file will store all your environment variables. Copy and paste your secret key into this file (remove the quotes and spaces around it). Here’s an example:
Open the.gitignorefile and confirm that the.envfile name is in it. If it isn’t, you can add it by writing the file name on its own on a line:
3. Install the python-dotenv Package
Open your CLI, and install thepython-dotenvpackage as a dependency.
4. Modify Your settings.py File
In yoursettings.pyfile, import the following packages:
Next, load the environment variables from your.envfile into yoursettings.pyfile by calling theload_dotenv()function:
Finally, replace yourSECRET_KEYvariable with this line of code:
you could run your development server to confirm that the above configuration works. If it does, your project should run as you’d expect. The command below will start your development server.
Keep Your Secret Key Safe With Environment Variables
Exposing your secret key can cause many problems for you as a developer. You might not always be able to recover your project from an attack, especially in a production environment.
To prevent these negative side effects, always store your secret key in an environment variable and use a.gitignorefile to keep it out of your git repository.
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