Mastering Django: Core

Substituting a custom user model

Some kinds of projects may have authentication requirements for which Django's built-in User model is not always appropriate. For instance, on some sites it makes more sense to use an email address as your identification token instead of a username. Django allows you to override the default User model by providing a value for the AUTH_USER_MODEL setting that references a custom model:

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'books.MyUser' 

This dotted pair describes the name of the Django app (which must be in your INSTALLED_APPS), and the name of the Django model that you wish to use as your User model.

Note

Changing AUTH_USER_MODEL has a big effect on your Django project, particularly your database structure. For example, if you change ...