FAQ: The admin
==============

I can't log in. When I enter a valid username and password, it just brings up the login page again, with no error messages.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The login cookie isn't being set correctly, because the domain of the cookie
sent out by Django doesn't match the domain in your browser. Try these two
things:

* Set the :setting:`SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN` setting in your admin config
  file to match your domain. For example, if you're going to
  "http://www.example.com/admin/" in your browser, in "myproject.settings" you
  should set :setting:`SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN` = 'www.example.com'.

* Some browsers (Firefox?) don't like to accept cookies from domains that
  don't have dots in them. If you're running the admin site on "localhost"
  or another domain that doesn't have a dot in it, try going to
  "localhost.localdomain" or "127.0.0.1". And set
  :setting:`SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN` accordingly.

I 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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you're sure your username and password are correct, make sure your user
account has :attr:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.is_active` and
:attr:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.is_staff` set to True. The admin site
only allows access to users with those two fields both set to True.

How do I automatically set a field's value to the user who last edited the object in the admin?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The :class:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin` class provides customization hooks
that allow you to transform an object as it saved, using details from the
request. By extracting the current user from the request, and customizing the
:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.save_model` hook, you can update an
object to reflect the user that edited it. See :ref:`the documentation on
ModelAdmin methods <model-admin-methods>` for an example.

How do I limit admin access so that objects can only be edited by the users who created them?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The :class:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin` class also provides customization
hooks that allow you to control the visibility and editability of objects in the
admin. Using the same trick of extracting the user from the request, the
:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.get_queryset` and
:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.has_change_permission` can be used to
control the visibility and editability of objects in the admin.

My admin-site CSS and images showed up fine using the development server, but they're not displaying when using mod_wsgi.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See :ref:`serving the admin files <serving-the-admin-files>`
in the "How to use Django with mod_wsgi" documentation.

My "list_filter" contains a ManyToManyField, but the filter doesn't display.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Django won't bother displaying the filter for a ``ManyToManyField`` if there
are fewer than two related objects.

For example, if your :attr:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.list_filter`
includes :doc:`sites </ref/contrib/sites>`, and there's only one site in your
database, it won't display a "Site" filter. In that case, filtering by site
would be meaningless.

Some objects aren't appearing in the admin.
-------------------------------------------

Inconsistent row counts may be caused by missing foreign key values or a
foreign key field incorrectly set to :attr:`null=False
<django.db.models.Field.null>`. If you have a record with a
:class:`~django.db.models.ForeignKey` pointing to a non-existent object and
that foreign key is included is
:attr:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.list_display`, the record will not be
shown in the admin changelist because the Django model is declaring an
integrity constraint that is not implemented at the database level.

How can I customize the functionality of the admin interface?
-------------------------------------------------------------

You've got several options. If you want to piggyback on top of an add/change
form that Django automatically generates, you can attach arbitrary JavaScript
modules to the page via the model's class Admin :ref:`js parameter
<modeladmin-asset-definitions>`. That parameter is a list of URLs, as strings,
pointing to JavaScript modules that will be included within the admin form via
a ``<script>`` tag.

If you want more flexibility than simply tweaking the auto-generated forms,
feel free to write custom views for the admin. The admin is powered by Django
itself, and you can write custom views that hook into the authentication
system, check permissions and do whatever else they need to do.

If you want to customize the look-and-feel of the admin interface, read the
next question.

The dynamically-generated admin site is ugly! How can I change it?
------------------------------------------------------------------

We like it, but if you don't agree, you can modify the admin site's
presentation by editing the CSS stylesheet and/or associated image files. The
site is built using semantic HTML and plenty of CSS hooks, so any changes you'd
like to make should be possible by editing the stylesheet.

What browsers are supported for using the admin?
------------------------------------------------

The admin provides a fully-functional experience to `YUI's A-grade`_ browsers,
with the notable exception of IE6, which is not supported.

There *may* be minor stylistic differences between supported browsers—for
example, some browsers may not support rounded corners. These are considered
acceptable variations in rendering.

.. _YUI's A-grade: http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/tutorials/gbs/