Add the ability to customize user creation in the createsuperuser command

[Lyra2108]

We want to perform actions after the creation of the superuser. But we do not want to rewrite the createsuper command entirely.

This should be done in a transaction, because if the post actions fail the user shall not be created.
Additionally it might be useful to also have a pre create action which can modify the user data passed to the create_superuser() method on the user manager and add non required parameters to the user data before the creation of the super user.

We thought about something along these lines:

django/contrib/auth/management/commands/createsuperuser.py

@@ -10 +10 @@
 from django.contrib.auth.management import get_default_username
 from django.core import exceptions
 from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, CommandError
-from django.db import DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS
+from django.db import DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS, transaction
 from django.utils.encoding import force_str
 from django.utils.six.moves import input
 from django.utils.text import capfirst
@@ -146 +146 @@
         if username:
             user_data[self.UserModel.USERNAME_FIELD] = username
             user_data['password'] = password
-            self.UserModel._default_manager.db_manager(database).create_superuser(**user_data)
+            with transaction.atomic():
+                user_data = self.pre_create(user_data)
+                user = self.UserModel._default_manager.db_manager(database).create_superuser(**user_data)
+                self.post_create(user)
             if options['verbosity'] >= 1:
                 self.stdout.write("Superuser created successfully.")
 
+    def pre_create(self, user_data):
+        return user_data
+
+    def post_create(self, user):
+        pass
+
     def get_input_data(self, field, message, default=None):
         """
         Override this method if you want to customize data inputs or

Diff is against v1.8.13 but this shouldn't make a difference.

[Tim Graham]

Could you provide more details about your use case? Is the post_save signal or overriding the model's manager not sufficient? I'm skeptical of more customizations points as these things increase complexity.

[Florian Apolloner]

I am not particularly fond of either solution.

• Signal registration is global and would happen for every user not just the superuser
• A custom manager seems overkill if all you want is to add some data somewhere and do not have your own user model
• Overriding the command is still work but probably the best solution suggested

Another option: Stuff something onto AppConfig and make create_superuser use apps.get_app_config(get_user_model()._meta.app_label).create_superuser which by default just be (ie if not defined):

UserModel._default_manager.db_manager(database).create_superuser(**user_data)

I think pre/post are overkill, someone customizing that can as well just write the create_superuser line too.

[Tim Graham]

Of course a signal could check the is_superuser attribute and act accordingly. Whether or not the use case also applies to superusers created in other ways is of course another question.

[Lyra2108]

Besides that the signal will also be called for a normal user request, we don't want to create the user at all, if the post create actions fail. If we would use the signal for this, we would have to do the rollback manually because the user is already saved in the database. The transaction would make that simpler.

[Tim Graham]

Could you please explain the use case a bit more? i.e. what actions do you want to perform?

[Lyra2108]

The main use case is to add permissions for the super user. Without the permissions the user isn't set up correctly and shouldn't be created.

[Tim Graham]

Oh, I guess you're using permissions in a somewhat unusual way since ModelBackend defines superusers as having all permissions.

Is the likelihood of the post_save signal failing really so large that you must perform actions in the same transaction? See also #24228 which questions whether or not ​pre_save and ​post_save should be in the transaction.

[Tim Graham]

Let's reopen if you can find enthusiasm for some solution on the DevelopersMailingList.