How to delete a django JWT token?

Question

I am using the Django rest framework JSON Web token API that is found here on github (https://github.com/GetBlimp/django-rest-framework-jwt/tree/master/).

I can successfully create tokens and use them to call protected REST APis. However, there are certain cases where I would like to delete a specific token before its expiry time. So I thought to do this with a view like:

class Logout(APIView):
    permission_classes = (IsAuthenticated, )
    authentication_classes = (JSONWebTokenAuthentication, )

    def post(self, request):
        # simply delete the token to force a login        
        request.auth.delete()  # This will not work
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_200_OK)

The request.auth is simply a string object. So, this is of course, not going to work but I was not sure how I can clear the underlying token.

EDIT

Reading more about this, it seems that I do not need to do anything as nothing is ever stored on the server side with JWT. So just closing the application and regenerating the token on the next login is enough. Is that correct?

Answer 1

The biggest disadvantage of JWT is that because the server does not save the session state, it is not possible to abolish a token or change the token's permissions during use. That is, once the JWT is signed, it will remain in effect until it expires, unless the server deploys additional logic. So, you cannot invalidate the token even you create a new token or refresh it. Simply way to logout is remove the token from the client.

Answer 2

Yes, it's correct to say that JWT tokens are not stored in the database. What you want, though, is to invalidate a token based on user activity, which doesn't seem to be possible ATM.

So, you can do what you suggested in your question, or redirect the user to some token refreshing endpoint, or even manually create a new token.