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How Django Google SSO works?

Current Flow

  1. First, the user is redirected to the Django login page. If settings GOOGLE_SSO_ENABLED is True, the "Login with Google" button will be added to a default form.

  2. On click, Django-Google-SSO will add, in a anonymous request session, the sso_next_url and Google Flow sso_state. This data will expire in 10 minutes. Then user will be redirected to Google login page.

    Using Request Anonymous session

    If you make any actions which change or destroy this session, like restart django, clear cookies or change browsers, the login will fail, and you can see the message "State Mismatched. Time expired?" in the next time you log in again.

  3. On callback, Django-Google-SSO will check code and state received. If they are valid, Google's UserInfo will be retrieved. If the user is already registered in Django, the user will be logged in.

  4. Otherwise, the user will be created and logged in, if his email domain, matches one of the GOOGLE_SSO_ALLOWABLE_DOMAINS. You can disable the auto-creation setting GOOGLE_SSO_AUTO_CREATE_USERS to False.

  5. On creation only, this user can be set to thestaff or superuser status, if his email are in GOOGLE_SSO_STAFF_LIST or GOOGLE_SSO_SUPERUSER_LIST respectively. Please note if you add an email to one of these lists, the email domain must be added to GOOGLE_SSO_ALLOWABLE_DOMAINStoo.

  6. This authenticated session will expire in 1 hour, or the time defined, in seconds, in GOOGLE_SSO_SESSION_COOKIE_AGE.

  7. If login fails, you will be redirected to route defined in GOOGLE_SSO_LOGIN_FAILED_URL (default: admin:index) which will use Django Messaging system to show the error message.

  8. If login succeeds, the user will be redirected to the next_path saved in the anonymous session, or to the route defined in GOOGLE_SSO_NEXT_URL (default: admin:index) as a fallback.

The setting GOOGLE_SSO_AUTHORIZATION_PROMPT controls the prompt parameter sent to Google's OpenID Connect authorization URL. It changes what Google shows to the user during authentication/consent:

  • "consent" (default): Always shows the consent screen, even if the user previously granted access to the requested scopes.
  • "select_account": Always shows the account chooser so the user can switch Google accounts before continuing.
  • "none": Never shows any screen. If the user is not already signed in to Google or has not granted consent yet, Google will return an error instead of showing screens.
  • None (or ""): Only show the relevant screens when they are needed. If the user is only logged in to one google account and that account has already consented, both the account and consent screens are bypassed. If consent hasn't been given, or the user is signed in to multiple google accounts, the relevant screens are shown. This is the default google prompt behavior.

Notes when testing locally: - If you have already granted consent to the default scopes (openid, userinfo.email, userinfo.profile) for your app, Google may only show the account selection step. This can make it seem like the experience is always the same. - To see the full consent screen again with consent, you can revoke the app permissions from your Google Account (Google Account -> Security -> Third-party access), or change the Scopes to include a new permission. - Using select_account typically results in the “Choose an account” screen, which matches what you are observing locally.

Example configuration in your Django settings:

# Valid values: "none", "consent", "select_account"
GOOGLE_SSO_AUTHORIZATION_PROMPT = "consent"  # default is "consent"

For more details about prompt, see Google's documentation: https://developers.google.com/identity/openid-connect/openid-connect#prompt