title: Django AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS import error
body: <p>What is the proper way to import a custom backend in settings.py? I currently have the following in settings.py:</p>
  
  <pre><code>AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = ('apps.apployment_site.auth.CustomAuth')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>where apployment_site is the app, auth is file name, and CustomAuth is the class name.</p>
  
  <p>In my view, I get: <code>ImportError: a doesn't look like a module path</code> after I run the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>from django.contrib.auth import authenticate
  from apployment_site import *
  authenticate(username="username", password="password")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here's my full settings.py:</p>
  
  <pre><code>"""Django settings for apployment project.
  
  For more information on this file, see
  https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/settings/
  
  For the full list of settings and their values, see
  https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/
  """
  
  # Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
  import os
  BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))
  
  
  # Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
  # See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/checklist/
  
  # SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
  SECRET_KEY = '3(a=jr=tfedkqzv3f=495%0$ygxjt332(=n0&amp;h=e2bzh(i#r*j'
  
  # SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
  DEBUG = True
  
  TEMPLATE_DEBUG = True
  
  ALLOWED_HOSTS = []
  
  
  # Application definition
  
  INSTALLED_APPS = (
      'django.contrib.admin',
      'django.contrib.auth',
      'django.contrib.contenttypes',
      'django.contrib.sessions',
      'django.contrib.messages',
      'django.contrib.staticfiles',
      'apployment_site'
  )
  
  MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
      'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
      'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
      'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
      'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
      'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
      'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
  )
  
  AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = ('apps.apployment_site.auth.CustomAuth')
  
  ROOT_URLCONF = 'apployment.urls'
  
  WSGI_APPLICATION = 'apployment.wsgi.application'
  
  
  # Database
  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#databases
  
  DATABASES = {
      'default': {
          'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
          'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
      }
  }
  
  # Internationalization
  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/i18n/
  
  LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'
  
  TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'
  
  USE_I18N = True
  
  USE_L10N = True
  
  USE_TZ = True
  
  
  # Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/static-files/
  
  STATIC_URL = '/static/'
  </code></pre>