How to create user from django shell

You should not create the user via the normal User(...) syntax, as others have suggested. You should always use User.objects.create_user(), which takes care of setting the password properly.

user@host> manage.py shell
>>> from django.contrib.auth.models import User
>>> user=User.objects.create_user('foo', password='bar')
>>> user.is_superuser=True
>>> user.is_staff=True
>>> user.save()