Authenticating users
The vast majority of the content in a ServiceNow instance is private and not available to just anyone browsing around the Internet. To control what users can see and do, you firstly need to know who they are. There are many different authentication mechanisms in ServiceNow, ranging from a simple username and password to complex industry-standard protocols such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and OpenID.
Using internal authentication
The standard way to prove your identity to your instance is with a username and password. The User table contains user ID and password fields. When an unauthenticated user accesses the instance, a login form is provided. The values that the user provides are compared with those in the User table, and if a set matches, a session is created, the roles associated with that user are recognized, and the user can begin their work. If the optional Remember me checkbox is checked, a longer-life cookie is stored in the browser during the...
