SOAP Header Element "Security"

SOAP Web Service Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟WS-Security - SOAP Message Security Extension

∟SOAP Header Element "Security"

This section describes the SOAP header element 'Security' introduced in WS-Security as container to pass all security related information.

As a SOAP extension, WS-Security introduces a new SOAP header element called "Security", which is designed to act like a container to store all security related information for SOAP request and response messages. Here is how the "Security" element is defined in the WS-Security schema:

<xsd:element name="Security" type="wsse:SecurityHeaderType"/>
<xsd:complexType name="SecurityHeaderType">
   <xsd:sequence>
      <xsd:any processContents="lax" minOccurs="0" 
         maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
   </xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:anyAttribute namespace="##other" processContents="lax"/>
</xsd:complexType>

As you can see from the above schema, the "Security" element type is defined to be extensible to have any types of sub elements and attributes.

Inside the "Security" element, we can another new element called "UsernameToken" to pass a user name token for the purpose of message sender authentication. Here is how the "UsernameToken" element is defined in the WS-Security schema:

<xsd:element name="UsernameToken" type="wsse:UsernameTokenType"/>
<xsd:complexType name="UsernameTokenType">
   <xsd:sequence>
      <xsd:element name="Username" type="wsse:AttributedString"/>
      <xsd:any processContents="lax"
         minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
   </xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:attribute ref="wsu:Id"/>
   <xsd:anyAttribute namespace="##other" processContents="lax"/>
</xsd:complexType>

As you can see from the above schema, the "UsernameToken" element has a required subelement "UserName" and an optional attribute "wsu:Id" (defined in a separated namespace called "wsu"). The "UsernameToken" element is also designed to be extensible to have any other types of sub elements and attributes.

Here is our first SOAP message example using the "Security" SOAP header to pass a "Username" in the "UsernameToken" to identify the SOAP message sender:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope/"
   xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org...wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"
   xmlns:yang="https://www.herongyang.com">
   <soap:Header>
      <wsse:Security>
         <wsse:UsernameToken>
            <wsse:Username>Herong</wsse:Username>
         </wsse:UsernameToken>
      </wsse:Security>
   </soap:Header>
   <soap:Body>
      <yang:Greeting>Hello Herong!</yang:Greeting>
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Notes on this example:

Namespace "soap" refers to the SOAP 1.2 schema located at: "http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope/".
Namespace "wsse" refers to the WSSE (WS-Security Extension 1.0) schema located at: "http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01 /oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd".
Namespace "yang" refers to the SOAP application example schema.

In this example, the "WS-Security" standard is used in a very simple way to just pass a user name. See next section on how to add user password and other security protections.