Token Authentication for RESTful API: should the token be periodically changed?

Question

I\'m building a RESTful API with Django and django-rest-framework.

As authentication mechanism we have chosen \"Token Authentication\" and I have already implemented

Answer 1

I've tried @odedfos answer but I had misleading error. Here is the same answer, fixed and with proper imports.

views.py

from django.utils import timezone
from rest_framework import status
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.authtoken.models import Token
from rest_framework.authtoken.views import ObtainAuthToken

class ObtainExpiringAuthToken(ObtainAuthToken):
    def post(self, request):
        serializer = self.serializer_class(data=request.DATA)
        if serializer.is_valid():
            token, created =  Token.objects.get_or_create(user=serializer.object['user'])

            if not created:
                # update the created time of the token to keep it valid
                token.created = datetime.datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=utc)
                token.save()

            return Response({'token': token.key})
        return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

authentication.py

from datetime import timedelta
from django.conf import settings
from django.utils import timezone
from rest_framework.authentication import TokenAuthentication
from rest_framework import exceptions

EXPIRE_HOURS = getattr(settings, 'REST_FRAMEWORK_TOKEN_EXPIRE_HOURS', 24)

class ExpiringTokenAuthentication(TokenAuthentication):
    def authenticate_credentials(self, key):
        try:
            token = self.model.objects.get(key=key)
        except self.model.DoesNotExist:
            raise exceptions.AuthenticationFailed('Invalid token')

        if not token.user.is_active:
            raise exceptions.AuthenticationFailed('User inactive or deleted')

        if token.created < timezone.now() - timedelta(hours=EXPIRE_HOURS):
            raise exceptions.AuthenticationFailed('Token has expired')

        return (token.user, token)