Explore Web service security

Release version: Australia

Updated March 12, 2026

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Summary of Explore Web Service Security

This document outlines how to implement security for web services using basic authentication, mutual authentication, or WS-Security within ServiceNow. It details the configuration needed to enforce these security measures on WSDL documents and SOAP message postings.

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Key Features

Basic Authentication: Set the property glide.basicauth.required to true to require the "Authorization" header in every request. This ensures that any actions taken via the web service are attributed to the authenticated user rather than a default guest user.
Case Insensitivity: Modify the glide.security.script.include.name.case.insensitive.list property to make the authorization header ignore capitalization rules.
Implementation Examples: Examples for supplying basic authentication in various programming languages (Perl, C#, VB.NET) are provided to facilitate integration.

Key Outcomes

With basic authentication enabled, customers can ensure that all web service interactions are secure and properly attributed to the correct user. If credentials are not supplied, a 401 error will be returned, indicating that authentication is required. This enhances the security posture of your ServiceNow instance and ensures compliance with access control policies.

Enforce security using basic authentication, mutual authentication, or WS-Security.

Basic Authentication

To enforce basic authentication on each request for a WSDL document or posting of SOAP messages, you may set the property glide.basicauth.required to true. If you do so, each WSDL or SOAP request would have to contain the "Authorization" header as specified in the Basic Authentication protocol. Because the request is non-interactive, the Authorization header is always required during a request.

Supplying basic authentication information whether or not it is required has the added advantage that the data created or updated as a result of the Web Service invocation is done on behalf of the user supplied in the basic authentication credentials. As an example, when creating an Incident record, the journal fields have the user id of the basic authenticated user, instead of the default Guest user.

To make the authorization header ignore the capitalization rules, use the glide.security.script.include.name.case.insensitive.list property. You can modify this property in the System Properties [sys_properties] table and add the script includes that are necessary to process the authentication. By default, this property has these values:

BasicAuth
CustomAuth

Add other script includes as needed.

To supply basic authentication when using Perl and the SOAP::Lite libraries, you can implement the following function:

sub SOAP :: Transport :: HTTP :: Client :: get_basic_credentials { return 'user_name' => 'password' ; }

When using C# .NET VS 2005 or older, you can take advantage of the Credentials object, for example:

System.Net . ICredentials cred  = new System.Net . NetworkCredential ( "user_name",  "password" ) ;
 
service . ServiceNow proxy  = new service . ServiceNow ( ) ;
service . get getService  = newservice . get ( ) ;
service . getResponse getServiceResponse  = new service . getResponse ( ) ;
 
 try {
  proxy . Credentials = cred ;
  getService . sys_id = "bf522c350a0a140701972dbf876f1610" ;
  getServiceResponse  = proxy . get (getService ) ; catch (Exception ex ) { }

When using C# .NET VS 2008, you can take advantage of the ClientCredentials object, for example:

Demo_Incident. ServiceNowSoapClient client  = new Test08WebService . Demo_Incident . ServiceNowSoapClient ( ) ;
client . ClientCredentials . UserName . UserName = "admin" ;
client . ClientCredentials . UserName . Password = "admin" ;

Then in your app.config file look for the following and change None to Basic:

<transport clientCredentialType= "None" proxyCredentialType= "None" realm= "" />

When using VB .NET taking advantage of the Credentials object would look like the following:

Sub Main()
         Dim cred  As New System.Net.NetworkCredential( "user_name",  "password")
 
         Dim proxy  As New VB_Democm.incident.ServiceNow
         Dim getIncident  As New VB_Democm.incident. get Dim getResponse  As New VB_Democm.incident.getResponse
 
        proxy.Credentials = cred
 
        getIncident.sys_id =  "[your sysID here]"
 
        getResponse = proxy. get(getIncident)
 
     End Sub

The resulting response when Basic Authentication is turned on and no credentials are supplied looks like this:

<html> <head > <title >Apache Tomcat/5.0.28 - Error report </ title > <style > <!--H1 {font-family:Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif;color:white;background-color:#525D76;font-size:22px;}    H2 {font-family:Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif;color:white;background-color:#525D76;font-size:16px;}    H3 {font-family:Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif;color:white;background-color:#525D76;font-size:14px;}    BODY {font-family:Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif;color:black;background-color:white;}    B {font-family:Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif;color:white;background-color:#525D76;}    P {font-family:Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif;background:white;color:black;font-size:12px;}   A {color&nbsp;: black;}   A.name {color&nbsp;: black;}   HR {color&nbsp;: #525D76;}--> </ style > </ head > <body > <h1 >HTTP Status 401 -\ </ h1 > <HR size = "1" noshade = "noshade" > <p >< b >type </ b > Status report </ p > <p >< b >message </ b > <u >< / u >< / p > <p >< b >description </ b > <u >This request requires HTTP authentication (). </ u >< / p > <HR size = "1" noshade = "noshade" > <h3 >Apache Tomcat/5.0.28 </ h3 > </ body > </ html >