Basic HTTP Authentication from Salesforce to Taleo

Question

I am a newbie and am writing a SOAP web service (for integration purpose), in order to execute the SOAP call I need to authenticate the user first(standard integration user).

Following is the code snippet for it. However, when I execute the callout, it throws error code 500 for Basic Http request and error code 401 for the second Http request.

Is this the correct approach?

HTTP auth = new HTTP();
HTTPRequest r = new HTTPRequest();
r.setEndpoint('https://domainname.net/enterprise/soap?ServiceName=IntegrationManagementService');
Blob headerValue = Blob.valueOf(username+':'+password);
String authorizationHeader = 'Basic ' + EncodingUtil.base64Encode(headerValue);
r.setHeader('Authorization', authorizationHeader);
r.setMethod('POST');

try
{
 HTTPResponse authresp = auth.send(r);
 if(authresp.getStatusCode() == 200)
       { 
           system.debug('Authentication success!!!' + authresp);
       }
       else
       {system.debug('Authentication failed!!!' + authresp + authresp.getStatusCode());}    
         }catch(exception e){}

   //construct http request
    string endpointURL = 'https://doaminname.net/enterprise/soap?ServiceName=IntegrationManagementService';
   HttpRequest req = new HttpRequest();
   req.setMethod('POST');

   req.setEndpoint(endpointURL);
   req.setHeader('Content-Type','application/xml');
   req.setBody(TaleoXML);

   //send http request
   Http http = new Http();
   try
   {
       HttpResponse res = http.send(req);

       //check the response
       if(res.getStatusCode() == 200)
       { 
           system.debug('Callout success!!!' + res);
       }
       else
       {system.debug('Callout failed!!!' + res + res.getStatusCode());}    
   }catch(exception e){}

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 31 '13 at 18:39

I'm not familiar with the library you're using here, but I can suggest a few possibilities to investigate:

Basic authentication is a stateless method. You don't log in and stay logged in with it. This means there's no separate initial authentication request (as your code implies); you include the Authorization header with every request. That's why you're getting the 401 on the second request.
On the first request, you are providing credentials and the the server is encountering an unexpected internal error (that's what 500 means). If it includes a body with the error response, it might have more information. I would guess that it has something to do with the fact that you didn't provide a body with your POST and the server was not expecting that.

If this is the first time you're using SOAP, you would probably be better off using a dedicated SOAP library rather than trying to construct requests yourself.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 06 '18 at 13:06

In the second request you don't include Authentication, that's why you get a 401 (Unauthorized) error.

In the first request, it seems you authenticate ok but the server fails to process the request. I think you missed to refer to the function/operation of the IntegrationManagementService webservice that you want to use. Or you are using a function/operation that needs MTOM enabled.

Basic HTTP Authentication from Salesforce to Taleo

2 Answers2