Generating settings.SECRET_KEY in django

On some occasions, there might be a need to generate a random Secret key for your Django project.

The easiest option could be starting a django shell and running the below command -

from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key  
get_random_secret_key()

However, this may not be safe to use in a production environment.

A better option is to use a defined a set of allowed characters including upper case letters and then use Django to generate a long key.

Here is an example of it -

a. Define a list of allowed characters

lower_plus_numbers = (list(chr(o) for o in range(0x61, 0x7B))
                      + list(chr(o) for o in range(0x30, 0x3A)))
punctuation = list('!@#$%^&*(-_=+)')
upper_alpha = list(chr(o) for o in range(0x41, 0x5B))

b. Generate Secret Key

from django.utils.crypto import get_random_string

key_length = 60
get_random_string(
    key_length,
    allowed_chars=lower_plus_numbers + punctuation + upper_alpha,
)

c. Sample Output

'*6u(3GyO&9RSO9S4%4+bX0bAN0T6!)ULrHs4XLnm@tq2!Wj!LYlS=i1vB%pl'