Proxy Server Settings

What is a proxy server?

A proxy server is an intermediary server that is virtually located between the client and the server. All the service requests are sent to the actual server via proxy servers.

Adding a proxy setting to WebServiceTemplate

We have already learned in the Sending requests using SOAP client lesson how to create a WebServiceTemplate that can be used to make web service calls.

This lesson is an extension of that part and here, we will add proxy settings to the created WebServiceTemplate with the following code:

import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;

import org.apache.http.HttpHost;
import org.apache.http.client.config.RequestConfig;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClients;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Jaxb2Marshaller;
import org.springframework.util.ClassUtils;
import org.springframework.ws.client.core.WebServiceTemplate;
import org.springframework.ws.transport.WebServiceMessageSender;
import org.springframework.ws.transport.http.HttpComponentsMessageSender;

import io.educative.soap_automation.GetStudentsRequest;

@Configuration
public class WebServiceClient {

	private final Jaxb2Marshaller marshaller = new Jaxb2Marshaller();

    private final static String PROXY_SERVER = "proxyhost";

	@PostConstruct
	public void init() throws Exception {
		marshaller.setPackagesToScan(ClassUtils.getPackageName(GetStudentsRequest.class));
		marshaller.afterPropertiesSet();
	}

	@Bean
	public WebServiceTemplate getWebServiceTemplate() {
		WebServiceTemplate webServiceTemplate = new WebServiceTemplate(marshaller);
		webServiceTemplate.setMessageSender(getMessageSender());
		return webServiceTemplate;
	}

	private WebServiceMessageSender getMessageSender() {
		RequestConfig config = RequestConfig
				.custom()
				.setProxy(new HttpHost(PROXY_SERVER))
				.build();

		CloseableHttpClient client = HttpClients
				.custom()
				.setDefaultRequestConfig(config)
				.build();

		return new HttpComponentsMessageSender(client);

	}
}

In the example above, we create an instance of Apache HttpClient to which we add the proxy settings, since we are considering sending all the requests to the web service over HTTP.

This instance of Apache HttpClient is used to create an instance of HttpComponentsMessageSender which is used to interact with the web service over HTTP. This instance is set to WebServiceTemplate as seen in the code snippet below:

WebServiceTemplate webServiceTemplate = new WebServiceTemplate(marshaller);
webServiceTemplate.setMessageSender(getMessageSender());	

---

In this lesson, we learned how to create the WebServiceTemplate with proxy settings. Let us quickly take a quiz to see how much you understand about SOAP automation.