Setting timeout to 'ClientHttpRequestFactory' with custom 'HttpClient' causes 'UnsupportedOperationException'

• java • notes

I have a project in my company that needs a connection timeout set to an instance of ClientHttpRequestFactory with a custom HttpClient because I need to bypass keys. This is used for Spring MVC’s RestTemplate connection.

Problem

Here is the code for creating the custom ClientHttpRequestFactory:

public ClientHttpRequestFactory getClientHttpRequestFactory()
    throws KeyManagementException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, KeyStoreException
{
    HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory requestFactory =
        new HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory();
    requestFactory.setHttpClient(httpClientFactory.get());
    requestFactory.setConnectTimeout(1000);
    return requestFactory;
}

I get the following error messages when setConnectTimeout() is present after setHttpClient():

Exception in thread "pool-1-thread-3" Exception in thread "pool-1-thread-1" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException
Exception in thread "pool-1-thread-2"  at org.apache.http.impl.client.InternalHttpClient.getParams(InternalHttpClient.java:204)
 at org.springframework.http.client.HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory.setConnectTimeout(HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory.java:118)

I experimented with other ways to solve it and found these two OK cases:

  1. without setConnectTimeout()

    I can connect and bypass with my custom HttpClient successfully however time is sacrificed.

  2. without setHttpClient()

    The connection is faster but I get bypass errors which is useless since I cannot connect to anything.

     PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target

Regarding HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory.java:118, I looked at it was a deprecated getHttpClient().getParams() issue with HttpClient version 4.3.x but when I tried to upgrade to the latest 4.5.2 (as of 2016 February) I still get UnsupportedOperationException.

Solution

Since HttpClient’s getParams() is deprecated:

Exception in thread "pool-1-thread-2"  at org.apache.http.impl.client.InternalHttpClient.getParams(InternalHttpClient.java:204)

We should use the suggested RequestConfig for versions 4.3.2 and up (based from Zamanillo’s answer).

In my case, instead of setting the connection timeout in an instance of HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory, I did it in the custom HttpClient:

public HttpClient get()
    throws KeyManagementException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, KeyStoreException
{
    HttpClientBuilder httpClientBuilder = HttpClients.custom();

    CloseableHttpClient httpClient =
        httpClientBuilder.setDefaultRequestConfig( getBuilder().build() )
            .setSSLSocketFactory( <custom bypass> ).build();
    return httpClient;
}

private Builder getBuilder()
{
    Builder builder = RequestConfig.custom();
    builder.setConnectTimeout( 500 );
    return builder;
}

I can use both the timeout and bypass in this case.

References

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