RestTemplate

If you need to call remote REST services from your application, you can use the Spring Framework’s RestTemplate class. Since RestTemplate instances often need to be customized before being used, Spring Boot does not provide any single auto-configured RestTemplate bean. It does, however, auto-configure a RestTemplateBuilder, which can be used to create RestTemplate instances when needed. The auto-configured RestTemplateBuilder ensures that sensible HttpMessageConverters are applied to RestTemplate instances.

The following code shows a typical example:

Java
Kotlin

import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateBuilder;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate;

@Service
public class MyService {

	private final RestTemplate restTemplate;

	public MyService(RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder) {
		this.restTemplate = restTemplateBuilder.build();
	}

	public Details someRestCall(String name) {
		return this.restTemplate.getForObject("/{name}/details", Details.class, name);
	}

}

import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateBuilder
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate

@Service
class MyService(restTemplateBuilder: RestTemplateBuilder) {

	private val restTemplate: RestTemplate

	init {
		restTemplate = restTemplateBuilder.build()
	}

	fun someRestCall(name: String): Details {
		return restTemplate.getForObject(
			"/{name}/details",
			Details::class.java, name
		)!!
	}

}

RestTemplateBuilder includes a number of useful methods that can be used to quickly configure a RestTemplate. For example, to add BASIC auth support, you can use builder.basicAuthentication("user", "password").build().

RestTemplate Customization

There are three main approaches to RestTemplate customization, depending on how broadly you want the customizations to apply.

To make the scope of any customizations as narrow as possible, inject the auto-configured RestTemplateBuilder and then call its methods as required. Each method call returns a new RestTemplateBuilder instance, so the customizations only affect this use of the builder.

To make an application-wide, additive customization, use a RestTemplateCustomizer bean. All such beans are automatically registered with the auto-configured RestTemplateBuilder and are applied to any templates that are built with it.

The following example shows a customizer that configures the use of a proxy for all hosts except 192.168.0.5:

Java
Kotlin

import org.apache.hc.client5.http.classic.HttpClient;
import org.apache.hc.client5.http.impl.classic.HttpClientBuilder;
import org.apache.hc.client5.http.impl.routing.DefaultProxyRoutePlanner;
import org.apache.hc.client5.http.routing.HttpRoutePlanner;
import org.apache.hc.core5.http.HttpException;
import org.apache.hc.core5.http.HttpHost;
import org.apache.hc.core5.http.protocol.HttpContext;

import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateCustomizer;
import org.springframework.http.client.HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory;
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate;

public class MyRestTemplateCustomizer implements RestTemplateCustomizer {

	@Override
	public void customize(RestTemplate restTemplate) {
		HttpRoutePlanner routePlanner = new CustomRoutePlanner(new HttpHost("proxy.example.com"));
		HttpClient httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().setRoutePlanner(routePlanner).build();
		restTemplate.setRequestFactory(new HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory(httpClient));
	}

	static class CustomRoutePlanner extends DefaultProxyRoutePlanner {

		CustomRoutePlanner(HttpHost proxy) {
			super(proxy);
		}

		@Override
		protected HttpHost determineProxy(HttpHost target, HttpContext context) throws HttpException {
			if (target.getHostName().equals("192.168.0.5")) {
				return null;
			}
			return super.determineProxy(target, context);
		}

	}

}

import org.apache.hc.client5.http.classic.HttpClient
import org.apache.hc.client5.http.impl.classic.HttpClientBuilder
import org.apache.hc.client5.http.impl.routing.DefaultProxyRoutePlanner
import org.apache.hc.client5.http.routing.HttpRoutePlanner
import org.apache.hc.core5.http.HttpException
import org.apache.hc.core5.http.HttpHost
import org.apache.hc.core5.http.protocol.HttpContext
import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateCustomizer
import org.springframework.http.client.HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate

class MyRestTemplateCustomizer : RestTemplateCustomizer {

	override fun customize(restTemplate: RestTemplate) {
		val routePlanner: HttpRoutePlanner = CustomRoutePlanner(HttpHost("proxy.example.com"))
		val httpClient: HttpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().setRoutePlanner(routePlanner).build()
		restTemplate.requestFactory = HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory(httpClient)
	}

	internal class CustomRoutePlanner(proxy: HttpHost?) : DefaultProxyRoutePlanner(proxy) {

		@Throws(HttpException::class)
		public override fun determineProxy(target: HttpHost, context: HttpContext): HttpHost? {
			if (target.hostName == "192.168.0.5") {
				return null
			}
			return  super.determineProxy(target, context)
		}

	}

}

Finally, you can define your own RestTemplateBuilder bean. Doing so will replace the auto-configured builder. If you want any RestTemplateCustomizer beans to be applied to your custom builder, as the auto-configuration would have done, configure it using a RestTemplateBuilderConfigurer. The following example exposes a RestTemplateBuilder that matches what Spring Boot’s auto-configuration would have done, except that custom connect and read timeouts are also specified:

Java
Kotlin

import java.time.Duration;

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.client.RestTemplateBuilderConfigurer;
import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateBuilder;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;

@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyRestTemplateBuilderConfiguration {

	@Bean
	public RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder(RestTemplateBuilderConfigurer configurer) {
		return configurer.configure(new RestTemplateBuilder())
			.setConnectTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(5))
			.setReadTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(2));
	}

}

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.client.RestTemplateBuilderConfigurer
import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateBuilder
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration
import java.time.Duration

@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyRestTemplateBuilderConfiguration {

	@Bean
	fun restTemplateBuilder(configurer: RestTemplateBuilderConfigurer): RestTemplateBuilder {
		return configurer.configure(RestTemplateBuilder()).setConnectTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(5))
			.setReadTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(2))
	}

}

The most extreme (and rarely used) option is to create your own RestTemplateBuilder bean without using a configurer. In addition to replacing the auto-configured builder, this also prevents any RestTemplateCustomizer beans from being used.