User Impersonation

The django_suap_auth.impersonation sub-app provides user impersonation features, allowing superusers to simulate other user sessions during support and testing workflows.

Installation

Add django_suap_auth.impersonation to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "django_suap_auth",
    "django_suap_auth.impersonation",
]

Routes and Views

Include impersonation URLs in your project’s urls.py:

from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    path("auth/impersonation/", include("django_suap_auth.impersonation.urls")),
]

Available views:

• ImpersonateView (route impersonate/<str:username>/ or impersonate/ with query/POST parameter): Starts user impersonation. Restricted to superusers and prevents impersonating other superusers or nested impersonations.

• StopImpersonatingView (route stop-impersonating/): Ends active impersonation for the session.

Helpers

The sub-app provides utility functions:

from django_suap_auth.impersonation.helpers import get_active_user, is_impersonating

# Returns impersonated User instance if an impersonation session is active;
# otherwise returns request.user.
user = get_active_user(request)

# Returns True if the current request is an active impersonation session.
impersonating = is_impersonating(request)

Context Processor

To include impersonation context variables in templates, add the context processor in settings.py:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
        "OPTIONS": {
            "context_processors": [
                # ...
                "django_suap_auth.impersonation.context_processors.impersonation",
            ],
        },
    },
]

Template context variables:

• active_user: The active user instance (considering impersonation).

• is_impersonating: Boolean indicating if impersonation is active.