Best practice for securely hashing passwords

pwdhash.py

# pwdhash.py
# Python 2.7.6

import uuid
import hashlib

"""
source - http://pythoncentral.io/hashing-strings-with-python/
"""


def hash_password(password):
    # uuid is used to generate a random number
    salt = uuid.uuid4().hex
    return hashlib.sha256(salt.encode() +
                          password.encode()).hexdigest() + ':' + salt


def check_password(hashed_password, user_password):
    password, salt = hashed_password.split(':')
    return password == hashlib.sha256(salt.encode() +
                                      user_password.encode()).hexdigest()

new_pass = raw_input('Please enter a password: ')
hashed_password = hash_password(new_pass)

print('The string to store in the db is: ' + hashed_password)

old_pass = raw_input('Now please enter the password again to check: ')

if check_password(hashed_password, old_pass):
    print('You entered the right password')
else:
    print('I am sorry but the password does not match')