python - Django CSRF check failing with an Ajax POST request

Question

I could use some help complying with Django's CSRF protection mechanism via my AJAX post. I've followed the directions here:

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/csrf/

I've copied the AJAX sample code they have on that page exactly:

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/csrf/#ajax

I put an alert printing the contents of getCookie('csrftoken') before the xhr.setRequestHeader call and it is indeed populated with some data. I'm not sure how to verify that the token is correct, but I'm encouraged that it's finding and sending something.

But Django is still rejecting my AJAX post.

Here's my JavaScript:

$.post("/memorize/", data, function (result) {
    if (result != "failure") {
        get_random_card();
    }
    else {
        alert("Failed to save card data.");
    }
});

Here's the error I'm seeing from Django:

[23/Feb/2011 22:08:29] "POST /memorize/ HTTP/1.1" 403 2332

I'm sure I'm missing something, and maybe it's simple, but I don't know what it is. I've searched around SO and saw some information about turning off the CSRF check for my view via the csrf_exempt decorator, but I find that unappealing. I've tried that out and it works, but I'd rather get my POST to work the way Django was designed to expect it, if possible.

Just in case it's helpful, here's the gist of what my view is doing:

def myview(request):

    profile = request.user.profile

    if request.method == 'POST':
        """
        Process the post...
        """
        return HttpResponseRedirect('/memorize/')
    else: # request.method == 'GET'

        ajax = request.GET.has_key('ajax')

        """
        Some irrelevent code...
        """

        if ajax:
            response = HttpResponse()
            profile.get_stack_json(response)
            return response
        else:
            """
            Get data to send along with the content of the page.
            """

        return render_to_response('memorize/memorize.html',
                """ My data """
                context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Thanks for your replies!

Answer 1

Real solution

Ok, I managed to trace the problem down. It lies in the Javascript (as I suggested below) code.

What you need is this:

$.ajaxSetup({ 
     beforeSend: function(xhr, settings) {
         function getCookie(name) {
             var cookieValue = null;
             if (document.cookie && document.cookie != '') {
                 var cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
                 for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
                     var cookie = jQuery.trim(cookies[i]);
                     // Does this cookie string begin with the name we want?
                     if (cookie.substring(0, name.length + 1) == (name + '=')) {
                         cookieValue = decodeURIComponent(cookie.substring(name.length + 1));
                         break;
                     }
                 }
             }
             return cookieValue;
         }
         if (!(/^http:.*/.test(settings.url) || /^https:.*/.test(settings.url))) {
             // Only send the token to relative URLs i.e. locally.
             xhr.setRequestHeader("X-CSRFToken", getCookie('csrftoken'));
         }
     } 
});

instead of the code posted in the official docs: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/csrf/

The working code, comes from this Django entry: http://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2011/feb/08/security/

So the general solution is: "use ajaxSetup handler instead of ajaxSend handler". I don't know why it works. But it works for me :)

Previous post (without answer)

I'm experiencing the same problem actually.

It occurs after updating to Django 1.2.5 - there were no errors with AJAX POST requests in Django 1.2.4 (AJAX wasn't protected in any way, but it worked just fine).

Just like OP, I have tried the JavaScript snippet posted in Django documentation. I'm using jQuery 1.5. I'm also using the "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware" middleware.

I tried to follow the the middleware code and I know that it fails on this:

request_csrf_token = request.META.get('HTTP_X_CSRFTOKEN', '')

and then

if request_csrf_token != csrf_token:
    return self._reject(request, REASON_BAD_TOKEN)

this "if" is true, because "request_csrf_token" is empty.

Basically it means that the header is NOT set. So is there anything wrong with this JS line:

xhr.setRequestHeader("X-CSRFToken", getCookie('csrftoken'));

?

I hope that provided details will help us in resolving the issue :)

Answer 2

If you use the $.ajax function, you can simply add the csrf token in the data body:

$.ajax({
    data: {
        somedata: 'somedata',
        moredata: 'moredata',
        csrfmiddlewaretoken: '{{ csrf_token }}'
    },

Answer 3

Add this line to your jQuery code:

$.ajaxSetup({
  data: {csrfmiddlewaretoken: '{{ csrf_token }}' },
});

and done.

Answer 4

The issue is because django is expecting the value from the cookie to be passed back as part of the form data. The code from the previous answer is getting javascript to hunt out the cookie value and put it into the form data. Thats a lovely way of doing it from a technical point of view, but it does look a bit verbose.

In the past, I have done it more simply by getting the javascript to put the token value into the post data.

If you use {% csrf_token %} in your template, you will get a hidden form field emitted that carries the value. But, if you use {{ csrf_token }} you will just get the bare value of the token, so you can use this in javascript like this....

csrf_token = "{{ csrf_token }}";

Then you can include that, with the required key name in the hash you then submit as the data to the ajax call.

Answer 5

The {% csrf_token %} put in html templates inside <form></form>

translates to something like:

<input type='hidden' name='csrfmiddlewaretoken' value='Sdgrw2HfynbFgPcZ5sjaoAI5zsMZ4wZR' />

so why not just grep it in your JS like this:

token = $("#change_password-form").find('input[name=csrfmiddlewaretoken]').val()

and then pass it e.g doing some POST, like:

$.post( "/panel/change_password/", {foo: bar, csrfmiddlewaretoken: token}, function(data){
    console.log(data);
});

Answer 6

Non-jquery answer:

var csrfcookie = function() {
    var cookieValue = null,
        name = 'csrftoken';
    if (document.cookie && document.cookie !== '') {
        var cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
        for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
            var cookie = cookies[i].trim();
            if (cookie.substring(0, name.length + 1) == (name + '=')) {
                cookieValue = decodeURIComponent(cookie.substring(name.length + 1));
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    return cookieValue;
};

usage:

var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.open('POST', url, true);
request.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8');
request.setRequestHeader('X-CSRFToken', csrfcookie());
request.onload = callback;
request.send(data);

Answer 7

It seems nobody has mentioned how to do this in pure JS using the X-CSRFToken header and {{ csrf_token }}, so here's a simple solution where you don't need to search through the cookies or the DOM:

var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhttp.open("POST", url, true);
xhttp.setRequestHeader("X-CSRFToken", "{{ csrf_token }}");
xhttp.send();

Answer 8

If your form posts correctly in Django without JS, you should be able to progressively enhance it with ajax without any hacking or messy passing of the csrf token. Just serialize the whole form and that will automatically pick up all your form fields including the hidden csrf field:

$('#myForm').submit(function(){
    var action = $(this).attr('action');
    var that = $(this);
    $.ajax({
        url: action,
        type: 'POST',
        data: that.serialize()
        ,success: function(data){
            console.log('Success!');
        }
    });
    return false;
});

I've tested this with Django 1.3+ and jQuery 1.5+. Obviously this will work for any HTML form, not just Django apps.

Answer 9

The accepted answer is most likely a red herring. The difference between Django 1.2.4 and 1.2.5 was the requirement for a CSRF token for AJAX requests.

I came across this problem on Django 1.3 and it was caused by the CSRF cookie not being set in the first place. Django will not set the cookie unless it has to. So an exclusively or heavily ajax site running on Django 1.2.4 would potentially never have sent a token to the client and then the upgrade requiring the token would cause the 403 errors.

The ideal fix is here: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/csrf/#page-uses-ajax-without-any-html-form
but you'd have to wait for 1.4 unless this is just documentation catching up with the code

Edit

Note also that the later Django docs note a bug in jQuery 1.5 so ensure you are using 1.5.1 or later with the Django suggested code: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/csrf/#ajax

Answer 10

Use Firefox with Firebug. Open the 'Console' tab while firing the ajax request. With DEBUG=True you get the nice django error page as response and you can even see the rendered html of the ajax response in the console tab.

Then you will know what the error is.

Answer 11

As it is not stated anywhere in the current answers, the fastest solution if you are not embedding js into your template is:

Put <script type="text/javascript"> window.CSRF_TOKEN = "{{ csrf_token }}"; </script> before your reference to script.js file in your template, then add csrfmiddlewaretoken into your data dictionary in your js file:

$.ajax({
            type: 'POST',
            url: somepathname + "do_it/",
            data: {csrfmiddlewaretoken: window.CSRF_TOKEN},
            success: function() {
                console.log("Success!");
            }
        })

Answer 12

I've just encountered a bit different but similar situation. Not 100% sure if it'd be a resolution to your case, but I resolved the issue for Django 1.3 by setting a POST parameter 'csrfmiddlewaretoken' with the proper cookie value string which is usually returned within the form of your home HTML by Django's template system with '{% csrf_token %}' tag. I did not try on the older Django, just happened and resolved on Django1.3. My problem was that the first request submitted via Ajax from a form was successfully done but the second attempt from the exact same from failed, resulted in 403 state even though the header 'X-CSRFToken' is correctly placed with the CSRF token value as well as in the case of the first attempt. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Hiro

Answer 13

You can paste this js into your html file, remember put it before other js function

<script>
  // using jQuery
  function getCookie(name) {
    var cookieValue = null;
    if (document.cookie && document.cookie != '') {
      var cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
      for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
        var cookie = jQuery.trim(cookies[i]);
        // Does this cookie string begin with the name we want?
        if (cookie.substring(0, name.length + 1) == (name + '=')) {
          cookieValue = decodeURIComponent(cookie.substring(name.length + 1));
          break;
        }
      }
    }
    return cookieValue;
  }

  function csrfSafeMethod(method) {
    // these HTTP methods do not require CSRF protection
    return (/^(GET|HEAD|OPTIONS|TRACE)$/.test(method));
  }

  $(document).ready(function() {
    var csrftoken = getCookie('csrftoken');
    $.ajaxSetup({
      beforeSend: function(xhr, settings) {
        if (!csrfSafeMethod(settings.type) && !this.crossDomain) {
          xhr.setRequestHeader("X-CSRFToken", csrftoken);
        }
      }
    });
  });
</script>

Answer 14

One CSRF token is assigned to every session ( i.e. every time you log in). So before you wish to get some data entered by user and send that as ajax call to some function which is protected by csrf_protect decorator, try to find the functions that are being called before you are getting this data from user. E.g. some template must be being rendered on which your user is entering data. That template is being rendered by some function. In this function you can get csrf token as follows: csrf = request.COOKIES['csrftoken'] Now pass this csrf value in context dictionary against which template in question is being rendered. Now in that template write this line: Now in your javascript function, before making ajax request, write this: var csrf = $('#csrf').val() this will pick value of token passed to template and store it in variable csrf. Now while making ajax call, in your post data, pass this value as well : "csrfmiddlewaretoken": csrf

This will work even if you are not implementing django forms.

In fact, logic over here is : You need token which you can get from request. So you just need to figure out the function being called immediately after log in. Once you have this token, either make another ajax call to get it or pass it to some template which is accessible by your ajax.

Answer 15

for someone who comes across this and is trying to debug:

1) the django csrf check (assuming you're sending one) is here

2) In my case, settings.CSRF_HEADER_NAME was set to 'HTTP_X_CSRFTOKEN' and my AJAX call was sending a header named 'HTTP_X_CSRF_TOKEN' so stuff wasn't working. I could either change it in the AJAX call, or django setting.

3) If you opt to change it server-side, find your install location of django and throw a breakpoint in the csrf middleware.f you're using virtualenv, it'll be something like: ~/.envs/my-project/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/middleware/csrf.py

import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace() # breakpoint!!
if request_csrf_token == "":
    # Fall back to X-CSRFToken, to make things easier for AJAX,
    # and possible for PUT/DELETE.
    request_csrf_token = request.META.get(settings.CSRF_HEADER_NAME, '')

Then, make sure the csrf token is correctly sourced from request.META

4) If you need to change your header, etc - change that variable in your settings file

Answer 16

If someone is strugling with axios to make this work this helped me:

import axios from 'axios';

axios.defaults.xsrfCookieName = 'csrftoken'
axios.defaults.xsrfHeaderName = 'X-CSRFToken'

Source: https://cbuelter.wordpress.com/2017/04/10/django-csrf-with-axios/

Answer 17

Easy ajax calls with Django

(26.10.2020)
This is in my opinion much cleaner and simpler than the correct answer.

The view

@login_required
def some_view(request):
    """Returns a json response to an ajax call. (request.user is available in view)"""
    # Fetch the attributes from the request body
    data_attribute = request.GET.get('some_attribute')  # Make sure to use POST/GET correctly
    # DO SOMETHING...
    return JsonResponse(data={}, status=200)

urls.py

urlpatterns = [
    path('some-view-does-something/', views.some_view, name='doing-something'),
]

The ajax call

The ajax call is quite simple, but is sufficient for most cases. You can fetch some values and put them in the data object, then in the view depicted above you can fetch their values again via their names.

You can find the csrftoken function in django's documentation. Basically just copy it and make sure it is rendered before your ajax call so that the csrftoken variable is defined.

$.ajax({
    url: "{% url 'doing-something' %}",
    headers: {'X-CSRFToken': csrftoken},
    data: {'some_attribute': some_value},
    type: "GET",
    dataType: 'json',
    success: function (data) {
        if (data) {
            console.log(data);
            // call function to do something with data
            process_data_function(data);
        }
    }
});

Add HTML to current page with ajax

This might be a bit off topic but I have rarely seen this used and it is a great way to minimize window relocations as well as manual html string creation in javascript.

This is very similar to the one above but this time we are rendering html from the response without reloading the current window.

If you intended to render some kind of html from the data you would receive as a response to the ajax call, it might be easier to send a HttpResponse back from the view instead of a JsonResponse. That allows you to create html easily which can then be inserted into an element.

The view

# The login required part is of course optional
@login_required
def create_some_html(request):
    """In this particular example we are filtering some model by a constraint sent in by 
    ajax and creating html to send back for those models who match the search"""
    # Fetch the attributes from the request body (sent in ajax data)
    search_input = request.GET.get('search_input')

    # Get some data that we want to render to the template
    if search_input:
        data = MyModel.objects.filter(name__contains=search_input) # Example
    else:
        data = []

    # Creating an html string using template and some data
    html_response = render_to_string('path/to/creation_template.html', context = {'models': data})

    return HttpResponse(html_response, status=200)

The html creation template for view

creation_template.html

{% for model in models %}
   <li class="xyz">{{ model.name }}</li>
{% endfor %}

urls.py

urlpatterns = [
    path('get-html/', views.create_some_html, name='get-html'),
]

The main template and ajax call

This is the template where we want to add the data to. In this example in particular we have a search input and a button that sends the search input's value to the view. The view then sends a HttpResponse back displaying data matching the search that we can render inside an element.

{% extends 'base.html' %}
{% load static %}
{% block content %}
    <input id="search-input" placeholder="Type something..." value="">
    <button id="add-html-button" class="btn btn-primary">Add Html</button>
    <ul id="add-html-here">
        <!-- This is where we want to render new html -->
    </ul>
{% end block %}

{% block extra_js %}
    <script>
        // When button is pressed fetch inner html of ul
        $("#add-html-button").on('click', function (e){
            e.preventDefault();
            let search_input = $('#search-input').val();
            let target_element = $('#add-html-here');
            $.ajax({
                url: "{% url 'get-html' %}",
                headers: {'X-CSRFToken': csrftoken},
                data: {'search_input': search_input},
                type: "GET",
                dataType: 'html',
                success: function (data) {
                    if (data) {
                        /* You could also use json here to get multiple html to
                        render in different places */
                        console.log(data);
                        // Add the http response to element
                        target_element.html(data);
                    }
                }
            });
        })
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Answer 18

In my case the problem was with the nginx config that I've copied from main server to a temporary one with disabling https that is not needed on the second one in the process.

I had to comment out these two lines in the config to make it work again:

# uwsgi_param             UWSGI_SCHEME    https;
# uwsgi_pass_header       X_FORWARDED_PROTO;

Answer 19

Here's a less verbose solution provided by Django:

<script type="text/javascript">
// using jQuery
var csrftoken = jQuery("[name=csrfmiddlewaretoken]").val();

function csrfSafeMethod(method) {
    // these HTTP methods do not require CSRF protection
    return (/^(GET|HEAD|OPTIONS|TRACE)$/.test(method));
}
// set csrf header
$.ajaxSetup({
    beforeSend: function(xhr, settings) {
        if (!csrfSafeMethod(settings.type) && !this.crossDomain) {
            xhr.setRequestHeader("X-CSRFToken", csrftoken);
        }
    }
});

// Ajax call here
$.ajax({
    url:"{% url 'members:saveAccount' %}",
    data: fd,
    processData: false,
    contentType: false,
    type: 'POST',
    success: function(data) {
        alert(data);
        }
    });
</script>

Source: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/csrf/

Answer 20

Related to the chosen Answer, just want to add on to the chosen Answer.

In that answer, regarding the solution with .ajaxSetup(...). In your Django settings.py, if you have

CSRF_USE_SESSIONS = True

It would cause the chosen Answer to not work at all. Deleting that line, or setting it to False worked for me while implementing the chosen Answer's solution.

Interestingly, if you set the following in your Django settings.py

CSRF_COOKIE_HTTPONLY = True

This variable will not cause the chosen Answer's solution to stop functioning.

Both CSRF_USE_SESSIONS and CSRF_COOKIE_HTTPONLY comes from this official Django doc https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/csrf/

(I do not have enough rep to comment, so I am posting my inputs an Answer)

Answer 21

I have a solution. in my JS I have two functions. First to get Cookies (ie. csrftoken):

function getCookie(name) {
let cookieValue = null;
if (document.cookie && document.cookie !== '') {
    const cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
    for (let i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
        const cookie = cookies[i].trim();
        // Does this cookie string begin with the name we want?
        if (cookie.substring(0, name.length + 1) === (name + '=')) {
            cookieValue = decodeURIComponent(cookie.substring(name.length + 1));
            break;
        }
    }
}
return cookieValue;

}

Second one is my ajax function. in this case it's for login and in fact doesn't return any thing, just pass values to set a session:

function LoginAjax() {


    //get scrftoken:
    const csrftoken = getCookie('csrftoken');

    var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
    var userName = document.getElementById("Login-Username");
    var password = document.getElementById("Login-Password");

    req.onreadystatechange = function () {
        if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {            
            //read response loggedIn JSON show me if user logged in or not
            var respond = JSON.parse(this.responseText);            
            alert(respond.loggedIn);

        }
    }

    req.open("POST", "login", true);

    //following header set scrftoken to resolve problem
    req.setRequestHeader('X-CSRFToken', csrftoken);

    req.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
    req.send("UserName=" + userName.value + "&Password=" + password.value);
}

Answer 22

Using Django 3.1.1 and all solutions I tried failed. However, adding the "csrfmiddlewaretoken" key to my POST body worked. Here's the call I made:

$.post(url, {
  csrfmiddlewaretoken: window.CSRF_TOKEN,
  method: "POST",
  data: JSON.stringify(data),
  dataType: 'JSON',
});

And in the HTML template:

<script type="text/javascript">
  window.CSRF_TOKEN = "{{ csrf_token }}";
</script>