Add docs for 401 vs 403 responses

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/rest_framework/authentication.py b/rest_framework/authentication.py
index 30c78ebc..e557abed 100644
--- a/rest_framework/authentication.py
+++ b/rest_framework/authentication.py
@@ -21,6 +21,14 @@ class BaseAuthentication(object):
         """
         raise NotImplementedError(".authenticate() must be overridden.")
 
+    def authenticate_header(self, request):
+        """
+        Return a string to be used as the value of the `WWW-Authenticate`
+        header in a `401 Unauthenticated` response, or `None` if the
+        authentication scheme should return `403 Permission Denied` responses.
+        """
+        pass
+
 
 class BasicAuthentication(BaseAuthentication):
     """