Login view that sends request for credentials to the client via WWW-Authenticate

gistfile1.py

def auth_landing_page(request):
    try:
        if request.META['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION']:
            # in httpd.conf set 'WSGIPassAuthorization On'
            # WSGIPassAuthorization will pass the login information sent by the client to the Django view,
            # as shown below. 
            http_authorization =  request.META['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION']
            import base64
            _user, _password = base64.b64decode(http_authorization[6:]).split(':')
            user = authenticate(username=_user, password=_password)
            if user != None:
                login(request, user)
                if user.is_authenticated():
                    # return request.GET['next'] contains the initially requested URL
                    # a typical redirected URL will look like this: /login/?next=/user/home/
                    return HttpResponseRedirect(request.GET['next'])
                else:
                    pass
            else: 
                return HttpResponse("Username or password was incorrect")
    except KeyError:
        # if we did not acquire user and password from the client,
        # present the client with a WWW-Authenticate challenge.
        client_auth_challenge = HttpResponse("")
        client_auth_challenge.status_code = 401
        client_auth_challenge['WWW-Authenticate'] = r'Basic realm="Secure Area"'
        return client_auth_challenge