spring mvc rest service redirect / forward / proxy

Question

I have build a web application using spring mvc framework to publish REST services. For example:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/movie")
public class MovieController {

@RequestMapping(value = "/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public @ResponseBody Movie getMovie(@PathVariable String id, @RequestBody user) {

    return dataProvider.getMovieById(user,id);

}

Now I need to deploy my application but I have the following problem: The clients do not have direct access to the computer on which the application resides (There is a firewall). Therefore I need a redirection layer on a proxy machine (accessible by the clients) which calls the actual rest service.

I tried making a new call using RestTemplate: For Example:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/movieProxy")
public class MovieProxyController {

    private String address= "http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xx/MyApp";

    @RequestMapping(value = "/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public @ResponseBody Movie getMovie(@PathVariable String id,@RequestBody user,final HttpServletResponse response,final HttpServletRequest request) {

        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
        RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
        return restTemplate.exchange( address+ request.getPathInfo(), request.getMethod(), new HttpEntity<T>(user, headers), Movie.class);

}

This is ok but I need to rewrite each method in the controller to use the resttemplate. Also, this causes redundant serialization/deserialization on the proxy machine.

I tried writing a generic function using restemplate, but it did not work out:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/movieProxy")
public class MovieProxyController {

    private String address= "http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xx/MyApp";

    @RequestMapping(value = "/**")
    public ? redirect(final HttpServletResponse response,final HttpServletRequest request) {        
        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
        RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
        return restTemplate.exchange( address+ request.getPathInfo(), request.getMethod(), ? , ?);

}

I could not find a method of resttemplate which works with request and response objects.

I also tried spring redirect and forward. But redirect does not change the request's client ip address so i think it is useless in this case. I could not forward to another URL either.

Is there a more appropriate way to achieve this? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can mirror/proxy all requests with this:

private String server = "localhost";
private int port = 8080;

@RequestMapping("/**")
@ResponseBody
public String mirrorRest(@RequestBody String body, HttpMethod method, HttpServletRequest request) throws URISyntaxException
{
    URI uri = new URI("http", null, server, port, request.getRequestURI(), request.getQueryString(), null);

    ResponseEntity<String> responseEntity =
        restTemplate.exchange(uri, method, new HttpEntity<String>(body), String.class);

    return responseEntity.getBody();
}

This will not mirror any headers.