The forced change of the generated admin password was a session flag
set at login when the password still matched data/admin_password. A
new session after the file was gone bypassed it.
- UserAttributes.must_change_password (migration 0007) holds it; the
admin created with a generated password gets it, and a password
change clears it. ForcePasswordChangeMiddleware reads it.
- A system check (accounts.E001) stops the server unless the middleware
follows AuthenticationMiddleware; the README has the settings change.
- If the generated password cannot be stored privately, provisioning
stops without printing it and without creating the admin (one
transaction for the user and its attributes).
- The admin is provisioned on any real migrate run while no user
exists, so running migrate again after a failure creates it; flush
(plan=None) and rollbacks of accounts are skipped.
- The post_migrate receivers check the migration state for the models
they use, so a targeted migrate on a fresh database (e.g. migrate
appsettings) no longer fails with 'no such table'.
While data/admin_password exists and a user's password still matches it,
the login sets a session flag (checked once at login, not per request).
ForcePasswordChangeMiddleware then sends that user to the password-change
page for every view except change password, login and logout. Setting a
new password clears the flag and deletes data/admin_password. No schema
change; if ADMIN_PASSWORD was set, there is no file and nothing is forced.
