Having a POST'able API and Django's CSRF Middleware

Question

I have a Django webapp that has both a front-end, web-accessible component and an API that is accessed by a desktop client. However, now with the new CSRF middleware component, API requests from the desktop client that are POST'ed get a 403.

I understand why this is happening, but what is the proper way to fix this without compromising security? Is there someway I can signal in the HTTP header that it's an API request and that Django shouldn't be checking for CSRF or is that a bad strategy?

Edit--

The method I'm using at the moment is that the desktop client sets a header, X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest. This is kinda hacky, but I'm not sure how this would be handled better.

Answer 1

How about just splitting off a view(s) for your desktop client and decorating them with csrf_exempt?

Answer 2

If you are using a Class Based View then you will need to csrf_exempt the dispatch method rather than the post method like this:

@method_decorator(csrf_exempt)
def dispatch(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    return super(MyView, self).dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)

See this bug ticket: https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/15794

Answer 3

Since Django 1.1, the CSRF code will automatically allow AJAX requests to pass through, since browsers seem to do proper security checks. Here is the original commit and the documentation.