HTTP Component

The http: component provides HTTP based endpoints for consuming external HTTP resources (as a client to call external servers using HTTP).

Maven users will need to add the following dependency to their pom.xml for this component:

URI format

Will by default use port 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS.

Examples

Call the url with the body using POST and return response as out message. If body is null call URL using GET and return response as out message

You can override the HTTP endpoint URI by adding a header. Camel will call the http://newhost. This is very handy for e.g. REST urls.

URI parameters can either be set directly on the endpoint URI or as a header

Set the HTTP request method to POST

HttpEndpoint Options

Authentication and Proxy

The following authentication options can also be set on the HttpEndpoint:

When using authentication you must provide the choice of method for the authMethod or authProxyMethod options.
You can configure the proxy and authentication details on either the HttpComponent or the HttpEndoint. Values provided on the HttpEndpoint will take precedence over HttpComponent. Its most likely best to configure this on the HttpComponent which allows you to do this once.

The HTTP component uses convention over configuration which means that if you have not explicit set a authMethodPriority then it will fallback and use the select(ed) authMethod as priority as well. So if you use authMethod.Basic then the auhtMethodPriority will be Basic only.

Note: camel-http is based on HttpClient v3.x and as such has only limited support for what is known as NTLMv1, the early version of the NTLM protocol. It does not support NTLMv2 at all. Camel-http4 has support for NTLMv2.

HttpComponent Options

HttpConfiguration contains all the options listed in the table above under the section HttpConfiguration - Setting Authentication and Proxy.

Message Headers

The header name above are constants. For the spring DSL you have to use the value of the constant instead of the name.

Message Body

Camel will store the HTTP response from the external server on the OUT body. All headers from the IN message will be copied to the OUT message, so headers are preserved during routing. Additionally Camel will add the HTTP response headers as well to the OUT message headers.

Response code

Camel will handle according to the HTTP response code:

• Response code is in the range 100..299, Camel regards it as a success response.
• Response code is in the range 300..399, Camel regards it as a redirection response and will throw a HttpOperationFailedException with the information.

• Response code is 400+, Camel regards it as an external server failure and will throw a HttpOperationFailedException with the information.

  throwExceptionOnFailure

  The option, throwExceptionOnFailure, can be set to false to prevent the HttpOperationFailedException from being thrown for failed response codes. This allows you to get any response from the remote server.
  There is a sample below demonstrating this.

HttpOperationFailedException

This exception contains the following information:

• The HTTP status code
• The HTTP status line (text of the status code)
• Redirect location, if server returned a redirect
• Response body as a java.lang.String, if server provided a body as response

Calling using GET or POST

The following algorithm is used to determine if either GET or POST HTTP method should be used:
1. Use method provided in header.
2. GET if query string is provided in header.
3. GET if endpoint is configured with a query string.
4. POST if there is data to send (body is not null).
5. GET otherwise.

How to get access to HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse

You can get access to these two using the Camel type converter system using

Using client timeout - SO_TIMEOUT

See the unit test in this link

More Examples

Configuring a Proxy

There is also support for proxy authentication via the proxyUsername and proxyPassword options.

Using proxy settings outside of URI

Options on Endpoint will override options on the context.

Configuring charset

If you are using POST to send data you can configure the charset

Sample with scheduled poll

The sample polls the Google homepage every 10 seconds and write the page to the file message.html:

Getting the Response Code

You can get the HTTP response code from the HTTP component by getting the value from the Out message header with Exchange.HTTP_RESPONSE_CODE.

Using throwExceptionOnFailure=false to get any response back

In the route below we want to route a message that we enrich with data returned from a remote HTTP call. As we want any response from the remote server, we set the throwExceptionOnFailure option to false so we get any response in the AggregationStrategy. As the code is based on a unit test that simulates a HTTP status code 404, there is some assertion code etc.

Disabling Cookies

To disable cookies you can set the HTTP Client to ignore cookies by adding this URI option:
httpClient.cookiePolicy=ignoreCookies

Advanced Usage

If you need more control over the HTTP producer you should use the HttpComponent where you can set various classes to give you custom behavior.

Setting MaxConnectionsPerHost

The HTTP Component has a org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpConnectionManager where you can configure various global configuration for the given component.
By global, we mean that any endpoint the component creates has the same shared HttpConnectionManager. So, if we want to set a different value for the max connection per host, we need to define it on the HTTP component and not on the endpoint URI that we usually use. So here comes:

First, we define the http component in Spring XML. Yes, we use the same scheme name, http, because otherwise Camel will auto-discover and create the component with default settings. What we need is to overrule this so we can set our options. In the sample below we set the max connection to 5 instead of the default of 2.

Using preemptive authentication

An end user reported that he had problem with authenticating with HTTPS. The problem was eventually resolved when he discovered the HTTPS server did not return a HTTP code 401 Authorization Required. The solution was to set the following URI option: httpClient.authenticationPreemptive=true

Accepting self signed certificates from remote server

See this link from a mailing list discussion with some code to outline how to do this with the Apache Commons HTTP API.

Setting up SSL for HTTP Client

Using the JSSE Configuration Utility

As of Camel 2.8, the HTTP4 component supports SSL/TLS configuration through the Camel JSSE Configuration Utility.  This utility greatly decreases the amount of component specific code you need to write and is configurable at the endpoint and component levels.  The following examples demonstrate how to use the utility with the HTTP4 component.

The version of the Apache HTTP client used in this component resolves SSL/TLS information from a global "protocol" registry.  This component provides an implementation, org.apache.camel.component.http.SSLContextParametersSecureProtocolSocketFactory, of the HTTP client's protocol socket factory in order to support the use of the Camel JSSE Configuration utility.  The following example demonstrates how to configure the protocol registry and use the registered protocol information in a route.

Configuring Apache HTTP Client Directly

Basically camel-http component is built on the top of Apache HTTP client, and you can implement a custom org.apache.camel.component.http.HttpClientConfigurer to do some configuration on the http client if you need full control of it.

However if you just want to specify the keystore and truststore you can do this with Apache HTTP HttpClientConfigurer, for example:

And then you need to create a class that implements HttpClientConfigurer, and registers https protocol providing a keystore or truststore per example above. Then, from your camel route builder class you can hook it up like so:

If you are doing this using the Spring DSL, you can specify your HttpClientConfigurer using the URI. For example:

As long as you implement the HttpClientConfigurer and configure your keystore and truststore as described above, it will work fine.

See Also

• Configuring Camel
• Component
• Endpoint
• Getting Started

• Jetty