Django admin command to "fix permissions" (create them properly for proxy models). This is needed because of the following bug in Django (not fixed as of 1.6): https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/11154

fix_permissions.py

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

"""Add permissions for proxy model.

This is needed because of the bug https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/11154
in Django (as of 1.6, it's not fixed).

When a permission is created for a proxy model, it actually creates if for it's
base model app_label (eg: for "article" instead of "about", for the About proxy
model).

What we need, however, is that the permission be created for the proxy model
itself, in order to have the proper entries displayed in the admin.

"""

from __future__ import unicode_literals, absolute_import, division

import sys

from django.contrib.auth.management import _get_all_permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from django.db.models import get_models
from django.utils.encoding import smart_unicode


class Command(BaseCommand):
    help = "Fix permissions for proxy models."

    def handle(self, *args, **options):
        for model in get_models():
            opts = model._meta
            ctype, created = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
                app_label=opts.app_label,
                model=opts.object_name.lower(),
                defaults={'name': smart_unicode(opts.verbose_name_raw)})

            for codename, name in _get_all_permissions(opts, ctype):
                p, created = Permission.objects.get_or_create(
                    codename=codename,
                    content_type=ctype,
                    defaults={'name': name})
                if created:
                    sys.stdout.write('Adding permission {}\n'.format(p))

thank you so much for this!

Agreed, thank you for this. As of 1.8, this is still an issue. This script works.

In case you have no idea how to use it, try the following (I had to search around for this since I'm still learning Django):

• create a directory /myproject/myapp/management/commands
• touch /myproject/myapp/management/__init__.py
• touch /myproject/myapp/management/commands/__init__.py
• and then save the code above into /myproject/myapp/management/commands/fix_permissions.py

Then you'll be able to run /manage.py fix_permissions

Just a heads up, if you're using Python 3, you'll have to swap out smart_unicode for smart_text.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/utils/#django.utils.encoding.smart_unicode

@magopian Thank you so much for this script. This is perfect. @nando1 Thanks for the fix.

I think I have this working hooked generally into post_migrate (Django 1.9 specifically, havent tested other versions, note the differences in get_models import location etc for 1.9). I have an app, label "support" which is nothing but proxy models and custom admins. In that app's models.py I added:

import sys

from django.contrib.auth.management import _get_all_permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
from django.apps import apps
from django.utils.encoding import smart_unicode
from django.db import models

def proxy_perm_create(**kwargs):
    for model in apps.get_models():
        opts = model._meta
        ctype, created = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
            app_label=opts.app_label,
            model=opts.object_name.lower(),
            defaults={'name': smart_unicode(opts.verbose_name_raw)})

        for codename, name in _get_all_permissions(opts, ctype):
            p, created = Permission.objects.get_or_create(
                codename=codename,
                content_type=ctype,
                defaults={'name': name})
            if created:
                sys.stdout.write('Adding permission {}\n'.format(p))


models.signals.post_migrate.connect(
    proxy_perm_create)

Worth noting I explicitly made sure 'django.contrib.contenttypes' is first in the INSTALLED_APPS list to get this working well.

I was using this method https://djangosnippets.org/snippets/2677/ in Django 1.6 prior to beginning the upgrade process to go to latest stable 1.9, this is how I have worked around the proxy permissions issue in current versions.

This tentatively seems to be working for me, including permission creation during test database setup etc. I may try limiting the signal to my "support" app sender explicitly but wasn't sure if other app migrations could somehow mess up content-types so, since it was already using get_or_create I simply hooked it in globally to run for all apps.

Hope this helps someone!

updated for django1.9

`

-- coding: utf-8 --

"""Add permissions for proxy model.
This is needed because of the bug https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/11154
in Django (as of 1.6, it's not fixed).
When a permission is created for a proxy model, it actually creates if for it's
base model app_label (eg: for "article" instead of "about", for the About proxy
model).
What we need, however, is that the permission be created for the proxy model
itself, in order to have the proper entries displayed in the admin.
"""

from future import unicode_literals, absolute_import, division

import sys

from django.contrib.auth.management import _get_all_permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from django.apps import apps
from django.utils.encoding import smart_unicode

class Command(BaseCommand):
help = "Fix permissions for proxy models."

def handle(self, *args, **options):
    for model in apps.get_models():
        opts = model._meta
        ctype, created = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
            app_label=opts.app_label,
            model=opts.object_name.lower(),
            defaults={'name': smart_unicode(opts.verbose_name_raw)})

        for codename, name in _get_all_permissions(opts, ctype):
            p, created = Permission.objects.get_or_create(
                codename=codename,
                content_type=ctype,
                defaults={'name': name})
            if created:
                sys.stdout.write('Adding permission {}\n'.format(p))

`

For python 3 and django 1.10.x

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

"""Add permissions for proxy model.
This is needed because of the bug https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/11154
in Django (as of 1.6, it's not fixed).
When a permission is created for a proxy model, it actually creates if for it's
base model app_label (eg: for "article" instead of "about", for the About proxy
model).
What we need, however, is that the permission be created for the proxy model
itself, in order to have the proper entries displayed in the admin.
"""

import sys

from django.contrib.auth.management import _get_all_permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from django.apps import apps
from django.utils.encoding import smart_text


class Command(BaseCommand):
    help = "Fix permissions for proxy models."

    def handle(self, *args, **options):
        for model in apps.get_models():
            opts = model._meta
            ctype, created = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
                app_label=opts.app_label,
                model=opts.object_name.lower(),
                defaults={'name': smart_text(opts.verbose_name_raw)})

            for codename, name in _get_all_permissions(opts):
                p, created = Permission.objects.get_or_create(
                    codename=codename,
                    content_type=ctype,
                    defaults={'name': name})
                if created:
                    sys.stdout.write('Adding permission {}\n'.format(p))

For those of you with django-extensions installed, just call the management command update_permissions

https://github.com/django-extensions/django-extensions/blob/master/django_extensions/management/commands/update_permissions.py

Manually, or at the end of your migration script with a RunPython / call_command.

@escsun, in for codename, name in _get_all_permissions(opts): it is also needed ctype: for codename, name in _get_all_permissions(opts, ctype):. Apart from that, it works like a charm.

Thank you for this! Just upgraded to django 1.10.6, and name is now deprecated on ContentType, so the line defaults={'name': smart_text(opts.verbose_name_raw)} needs to be removed.

@pablocesar87 _get_all_permissions(opts) is correct for Django 1.10, _get_all_permissions(opts, ctype) for Django <= 1.9

Here´s a working sample for django 1.11:

import sys

from django.contrib.auth.management import _get_all_permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from django.apps import apps


class Command(BaseCommand):
    help = "Fix permissions for proxy models."

    def handle(self, *args, **options):
        for model in apps.get_models():
            opts = model._meta
            sys.stdout.write('{}-{}\n'.format(opts.app_label, opts.object_name.lower()))
            ctype, created = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
                app_label=opts.app_label,
                model=opts.object_name.lower())

            for codename, name in _get_all_permissions(opts):
                sys.stdout.write('  --{}\n'.format(codename))
                p, created = Permission.objects.get_or_create(
                    codename=codename,
                    content_type=ctype,
                    defaults={'name': name})
                if created:
                    sys.stdout.write('Adding permission {}\n'.format(p))

As this bug is still present in version 2.0 -- here is a working version for django 2.0

import sys

from django.apps import apps
from django.utils.encoding import smart_text
from django.contrib.auth.management import _get_all_permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType

# proxy model missing permission workaround - modified for Django 2.0
def proxy_perm_create(**kwargs):
    for model in apps.get_models():
        opts = model._meta
        print(opts.verbose_name_raw)
        ctype, created = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
            app_label=opts.app_label,
            model=opts.object_name.lower())

        for code_tupel in _get_all_permissions(opts):
            codename = code_tupel[0]
            name = code_tupel[1]
            p, created = Permission.objects.get_or_create(
                codename=codename,
                content_type=ctype,
                defaults={'name': name})
            if created:
                sys.stdout.write('Adding permission {}\n'.format(p))


models.signals.post_migrate.connect(proxy_perm_create)

As @dckemble noticed you should adjust your INSTALLED_APPS:

Worth noting I explicitly made sure 'django.contrib.contenttypes' is first in the INSTALLED_APPS list to get this working well.

The permissions are created for proxy models, just with the wrong content_type. I updated the code and tested in Django 1.11:

from django.apps import apps
from django.contrib.auth.management import _get_all_permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType


def fix_proxy_permissions(**kwargs):
    for model in apps.get_models():
        opts = model._meta

        if not opts.proxy:
            continue

        # The content_type creation is needed for the tests
        proxy_content_type, __ = ContentType.objects.get_or_create(
            app_label=opts.app_label,
            model=opts.model_name,
        )

        concrete_content_type = ContentType.objects.get_for_model(
            model,
            for_concrete_model=True,
        )

        for code_tuple in _get_all_permissions(opts):
            codename = code_tuple[0]
            name = code_tuple[1]
            # Delete the automatically generated permission from Django
            Permission.objects.filter(
                codename=codename,
                content_type=concrete_content_type,
            ).delete()

            # Create the correct permission for the proxy model
            Permission.objects.get_or_create(
                codename=codename,
                content_type=proxy_content_type,
                defaults={
                    'name': name,
                })

signals.post_migrate.connect(fix_proxy_permissions)

If anyone is interested, https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/11154 has been fixed and will be part of the 2.2 release.