==========================

Django 1.2.4 release notes

==========================

Welcome to Django 1.2.4!

This is the fourth "bugfix" release in the Django 1.2 series,

improving the stability and performance of the Django 1.2 codebase.

With one exception, Django 1.2.4 maintains backwards compatibility

with Django 1.2.3. It also contains a number of fixes and other

improvements. Django 1.2.4 is a recommended upgrade for any

development or deployment currently using or targeting Django 1.2.

For full details on the new features, backwards incompatibilities, and

deprecated features in the 1.2 branch, see the :doc:`/releases/1.2`.

Backwards incompatible changes

==============================

Restricted filters in admin interface

-------------------------------------

The Django administrative interface, ``django.contrib.admin``, supports

filtering of displayed lists of objects by fields on the corresponding

models, including across database-level relationships. This is

implemented by passing lookup arguments in the querystring portion of

the URL, and options on the ModelAdmin class allow developers to

specify particular fields or relationships which will generate

automatic links for filtering.

One historically-undocumented and -unofficially-supported feature has

been the ability for a user with sufficient knowledge of a model's

structure and the format of these lookup arguments to invent useful

new filters on the fly by manipulating the querystring.

However, it has been demonstrated that this can be abused to gain

access to information outside of an admin user's permissions; for

example, an attacker with access to the admin and sufficient knowledge

of model structure and relations could construct query strings which --

with repeated use of regular-expression lookups supported by the

Django database API -- expose sensitive information such as users'

password hashes.

To remedy this, ``django.contrib.admin`` will now validate that

querystring lookup arguments either specify only fields on the model

being viewed, or cross relations which have been explicitly

allowed by the application developer using the preexisting

mechanism mentioned above. This is backwards-incompatible for any

users relying on the prior ability to insert arbitrary lookups.

One new feature

===============

Ordinarily, a point release would not include new features, but in the

case of Django 1.2.4, we have made an exception to this rule.

One of the bugs fixed in Django 1.2.4 involves a set of

circumstances whereby a running a test suite on a multiple database

configuration could cause the original source database (i.e., the

actual production database) to be dropped, causing catastrophic loss

of data. In order to provide a fix for this problem, it was necessary

to introduce a new setting -- :setting:`TEST_DEPENDENCIES` -- that

allows you to define any creation order dependencies in your database

configuration.

Most users -- even users with multiple-database configurations -- need

not be concerned about the data loss bug, or the manual configuration of

:setting:`TEST_DEPENDENCIES`. See the :ticket:`original problem report <14415>`

documentation on :ref:`controlling the creation order of test

databases <topics-testing-creation-dependencies>` for details.

GeoDjango

=========

The function-based :setting:`TEST_RUNNER` previously used to execute

the GeoDjango test suite, ``django.contrib.gis.tests.run_gis_tests``,

was finally deprecated in favor of a class-based test runner,

``django.contrib.gis.tests.GeoDjangoTestSuiteRunner``, added in this

release.

In addition, the GeoDjango test suite is now included when

:ref:`running the Django test suite <running-unit-tests>` with ``runtests.py``

and using :ref:`spatial database backends <spatial-backends>`.