User Registration with OTP verification

In this article we’ll learn how to perform user registration with OTP verification. This is a beginner level article but you need to have basic knowledge about django and django rest framework.

If you’re not aware those, you can refer following tutorials.
https://youtu.be/hw3Cttc9qZQ?si=OJJpu_kI48fLlwLG (django basics)

https://youtu.be/s7aINQPGNDM?si=zil3GG8Ve_-FZ8zs (django rest framework)

this article contains only backend part.

Let’s dive into the process.

There are 3 steps to follow.

1. Generate app password with your gmail account and store it in settings

2. create user app and user model.

3. create user serializers and end points for registration and verification of otp

   Step 1:

   If you have hostinger or aws account, you can skip this the 1st part of the step and simple add it’s credentials in settings file

   Visit google accounts and search for app passwords

   

   create a demo app

   

   A password is generated

   

   Add these credentials in settings.py

   .env file

   

   settings.py

   

   Step 2:

   Create User app, user model

   create app using “python manage.py startapp users”. include the app in included apps in settings.py.

   create user model by inheriting AbstractUser

   

   create userprofile with user as onetoone field and otp as one of the field

   

   generate_otp function is to generate otp for user and is_otp_valid function is to verify the otp

   Step 3: create serializers and end points

   • Confirm Password Validation: The serializer checks if password and confirm_password match. If not, it raises an error to ensure users provide consistent password inputs.

   • User Creation:

     • When a new user is registered, this serializer creates a user instance.

     • The phone_number is also saved, ensuring that it's a part of the user data.

     • The user's status is set to inactive initially to ensure OTP verification before activation.

   • User Profile Creation: After the user is created, a linked UserProfile is also created to store additional user details.

UserRegistrationView

• Serializer Integration:

  • The view creates an instance of the UserRegistrationSerializer and passes the request data for validation.

  • If valid, the serializer saves the user and sets them as inactive until the OTP is verified.

• OTP Generation:

  • After the user is saved, the code retrieves the user's profile and generates an OTP using a custom method, generate_otp().

• Email OTP Sending:

  • The OTP is sent via email using Django’s send_mail() function, ensuring that the user receives it to verify their account.

  • The email contains a simple message with the OTP, prompting the user to complete their verification.

• Response Handling:

  • If the registration is successful, a confirmation message is returned, instructing the user to verify their account using the OTP.

  • In case of validation errors, the response returns the specific errors, ensuring transparency.

• Extracting Data:

  • It extracts the email and otp from the request data to verify the user.

• Finding User Profile:

  • The code retrieves the user's profile based on the email provided.

• OTP Validation:

  • It checks if the provided OTP matches the stored OTP using a method, is_otp_valid(otp).

  • If the OTP is valid, the user's profile is marked as verified, and the user account is activated by setting is_active to True.

• Handling Responses:

  • If verification is successful, it returns a success message.

  • If the OTP is invalid or expired, it returns an error response.

  • If the email is not found, it also returns an error indicating that the email is invalid.

Add these paths in url.py in user App. and don’t forget include user.urls in main project’s urls file.

Now the process runs smoothly as followed,

run the server and send a post request to http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/users/register/ with necessary details of a user

OTP will be sent to the email mentioned in post request.

Send a post request with your mail id and otp to http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/users/verify-otp/

Now the account is registered and verified successfully.

In the next blog, we’ll learn how to implement user logins with simple jwt.