/docs/faq/admin.txt

 1FAQ: The admin
 2==============
 3
 4I can't log in. When I enter a valid username and password, it just brings up the login page again, with no error messages.
 5---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 6
 7The login cookie isn't being set correctly, because the domain of the cookie
 8sent out by Django doesn't match the domain in your browser. Try these two
 9things:
10
11    * Set the :setting:`SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN` setting in your admin config
12      file to match your domain. For example, if you're going to
13      "http://www.example.com/admin/" in your browser, in
14      "myproject.settings" you should set ``SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN = 'www.example.com'``.
15
16    * Some browsers (Firefox?) don't like to accept cookies from domains that
17      don't have dots in them. If you're running the admin site on "localhost"
18      or another domain that doesn't have a dot in it, try going to
19      "localhost.localdomain" or "127.0.0.1". And set
20      :setting:`SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN` accordingly.
21
22I can't log in. When I enter a valid username and password, it brings up the login page again, with a "Please enter a correct username and password" error.
23-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24
25If you're sure your username and password are correct, make sure your user
26account has ``is_active`` and ``is_staff`` set to True. The admin site only
27allows access to users with those two fields both set to True.
28
29How can I prevent the cache middleware from caching the admin site?
30-------------------------------------------------------------------
31
32Set the :setting:`CACHE_MIDDLEWARE_ANONYMOUS_ONLY` setting to ``True``. See the
33:doc:`cache documentation </topics/cache>` for more information.
34
35How do I automatically set a field's value to the user who last edited the object in the admin?
36-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
37
38The :class:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin` class provides customization hooks
39that allow you to transform an object as it saved, using details from the
40request. By extracting the current user from the request, and customizing the
41:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.save_model` hook, you can update an
42object to reflect the user that edited it. See :ref:`the documentation on
43ModelAdmin methods <model-admin-methods>` for an example.
44
45How do I limit admin access so that objects can only be edited by the users who created them?
46---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
47
48The :class:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin` class also provides customization
49hooks that allow you to control the visibility and editability of objects in the
50admin. Using the same trick of extracting the user from the request, the
51:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.queryset` and
52:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.has_change_permission` can be used to
53control the visibility and editability of objects in the admin.
54
55My admin-site CSS and images showed up fine using the development server, but they're not displaying when using mod_wsgi.
56---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
57
58See :ref:`serving the admin files <serving-the-admin-files>`
59in the "How to use Django with mod_wsgi" documentation.
60
61My "list_filter" contains a ManyToManyField, but the filter doesn't display.
62----------------------------------------------------------------------------
63
64Django won't bother displaying the filter for a ``ManyToManyField`` if there
65are fewer than two related objects.
66
67For example, if your ``list_filter`` includes ``sites``, and there's only one
68site in your database, it won't display a "Site" filter. In that case,
69filtering by site would be meaningless.
70
71How can I customize the functionality of the admin interface?
72-------------------------------------------------------------
73
74You've got several options. If you want to piggyback on top of an add/change
75form that Django automatically generates, you can attach arbitrary JavaScript
76modules to the page via the model's ``class Admin`` ``js`` parameter. That
77parameter is a list of URLs, as strings, pointing to JavaScript modules that
78will be included within the admin form via a ``<script>`` tag.
79
80If you want more flexibility than simply tweaking the auto-generated forms,
81feel free to write custom views for the admin. The admin is powered by Django
82itself, and you can write custom views that hook into the authentication
83system, check permissions and do whatever else they need to do.
84
85If you want to customize the look-and-feel of the admin interface, read the
86next question.
87
88The dynamically-generated admin site is ugly! How can I change it?
89------------------------------------------------------------------
90
91We like it, but if you don't agree, you can modify the admin site's
92presentation by editing the CSS stylesheet and/or associated image files. The
93site is built using semantic HTML and plenty of CSS hooks, so any changes you'd
94like to make should be possible by editing the stylesheet. We've got a
95:doc:`guide to the CSS used in the admin </obsolete/admin-css>` to get you started.
96