[java] Spring Boot Adding Http Request Interceptors

What is the right way to add HttpRequest interceptors in spring boot application? What I want to do is log requests and responses for every http request.

Spring boot documentation does not cover this topic at all. (http://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/)

I found some web samples on how to do the same with older versions of spring, but those work with applicationcontext.xml. Please help.

WebMvcConfigurerAdapter will be deprecated with Spring 5. From its Javadoc:

@deprecated as of 5.0 {@link WebMvcConfigurer} has default methods (made possible by a Java 8 baseline) and can be implemented directly without the need for this adapter

As stated above, what you should do is implementing WebMvcConfigurer and overriding addInterceptors method.

@Configuration
public class WebMvcConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {

    @Override
    public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry) {
        registry.addInterceptor(new MyCustomInterceptor());
    }
}

Below is an implementation I use to intercept each HTTP request before it goes out and the response which comes back. With this implementation, I also have a single point where I can pass any header value with the request.

public class HttpInterceptor implements ClientHttpRequestInterceptor {
private Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(this.getClass());
@Override
public ClientHttpResponse intercept(
        HttpRequest request, byte[] body,
        ClientHttpRequestExecution execution
) throws IOException {
    HttpHeaders headers = request.getHeaders();
    headers.add("Accept", MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_UTF8_VALUE);
    headers.add("Content-Type", MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE);
    traceRequest(request, body);
    ClientHttpResponse response = execution.execute(request, body);
    traceResponse(response);
    return response;
}

private void traceRequest(HttpRequest request, byte[] body) throws IOException {
    logger.info("===========================Request begin======================================");
    logger.info("URI         : {}", request.getURI());
    logger.info("Method      : {}", request.getMethod());
    logger.info("Headers     : {}", request.getHeaders() );
    logger.info("Request body: {}", new String(body, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
    logger.info("==========================Request end=========================================");
}

private void traceResponse(ClientHttpResponse response) throws IOException {
    logger.info("============================Response begin====================================");
    logger.info("Status code  : {}", response.getStatusCode());
    logger.info("Status text  : {}", response.getStatusText());
    logger.info("Headers      : {}", response.getHeaders());
    logger.info("=======================Response end===========================================");
}}

Below is the Rest Template Bean

@Bean
public RestTemplate restTemplate(HttpClient httpClient)
{
    HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory requestFactory =
            new HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory();
    requestFactory.setHttpClient(httpClient);
    RestTemplate restTemplate=  new RestTemplate(requestFactory);
    List<ClientHttpRequestInterceptor> interceptors = restTemplate.getInterceptors();
    if (CollectionUtils.isEmpty(interceptors))
    {
        interceptors = new ArrayList<>();
    }
    interceptors.add(new HttpInterceptor());
    restTemplate.setInterceptors(interceptors);

    return restTemplate;
}

I had the same issue of WebMvcConfigurerAdapter being deprecated. When I searched for examples, I hardly found any implemented code. Here is a piece of working code.

create a class that extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.HandlerInterceptorAdapter;

import me.rajnarayanan.datatest.DataTestApplication;
@Component
public class EmployeeInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter {
    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(DataTestApplication.class);
    @Override
    public boolean preHandle(HttpServletRequest request, 
            HttpServletResponse response, Object handler) throws Exception {

            String x = request.getMethod();
            logger.info(x + "intercepted");
        return true;
    }

}

then Implement WebMvcConfigurer interface

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.InterceptorRegistry;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.WebMvcConfigurer;

import me.rajnarayanan.datatest.interceptor.EmployeeInterceptor;
@Configuration
public class WebMvcConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {
    @Autowired
    EmployeeInterceptor employeeInterceptor ;

    @Override
    public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry){
        registry.addInterceptor(employeeInterceptor).addPathPatterns("/employee");
    }
}

Since all responses to this make use of the now long-deprecated abstract WebMvcConfigurer Adapter instead of the WebMvcInterface (as already noted by @sebdooe), here is a working minimal example for a SpringBoot (2.1.4) application with an Interceptor:

Minimal.java:

@SpringBootApplication
public class Minimal
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        SpringApplication.run(Minimal.class, args);
    }
}

MinimalController.java:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/")
public class Controller
{
    @GetMapping("/")
    @ResponseBody
    public ResponseEntity<String> getMinimal()
    {
        System.out.println("MINIMAL: GETMINIMAL()");

        return new ResponseEntity<String>("returnstring", HttpStatus.OK);
    }
}

Config.java:

@Configuration
public class Config implements WebMvcConfigurer
{
    //@Autowired
    //MinimalInterceptor minimalInterceptor;

    @Override
    public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry)
    {
        registry.addInterceptor(new MinimalInterceptor());
    }
}

MinimalInterceptor.java:

public class MinimalInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter
{
    @Override
    public boolean preHandle(HttpServletRequest requestServlet, HttpServletResponse responseServlet, Object handler) throws Exception
    {
        System.out.println("MINIMAL: INTERCEPTOR PREHANDLE CALLED");

        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public void postHandle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Object handler, ModelAndView modelAndView) throws Exception
    {
        System.out.println("MINIMAL: INTERCEPTOR POSTHANDLE CALLED");
    }

    @Override
    public void afterCompletion(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Object handler, Exception exception) throws Exception
    {
        System.out.println("MINIMAL: INTERCEPTOR AFTERCOMPLETION CALLED");
    }
}

works as advertised

The output will give you something like:

> Task :Minimal.main()

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::        (v2.1.4.RELEASE)

2019-04-29 11:53:47.560  INFO 4593 --- [           main] io.minimal.Minimal                       : Starting Minimal on y with PID 4593 (/x/y/z/spring-minimal/build/classes/java/main started by x in /x/y/z/spring-minimal)
2019-04-29 11:53:47.563  INFO 4593 --- [           main] io.minimal.Minimal                       : No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default
2019-04-29 11:53:48.745  INFO 4593 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.embedded.tomcat.TomcatWebServer  : Tomcat initialized with port(s): 8080 (http)
2019-04-29 11:53:48.780  INFO 4593 --- [           main] o.apache.catalina.core.StandardService   : Starting service [Tomcat]
2019-04-29 11:53:48.781  INFO 4593 --- [           main] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine  : Starting Servlet engine: [Apache Tomcat/9.0.17]
2019-04-29 11:53:48.892  INFO 4593 --- [           main] o.a.c.c.C.[Tomcat].[localhost].[/]       : Initializing Spring embedded WebApplicationContext
2019-04-29 11:53:48.893  INFO 4593 --- [           main] o.s.web.context.ContextLoader            : Root WebApplicationContext: initialization completed in 1269 ms
2019-04-29 11:53:49.130  INFO 4593 --- [           main] o.s.s.concurrent.ThreadPoolTaskExecutor  : Initializing ExecutorService 'applicationTaskExecutor'
2019-04-29 11:53:49.375  INFO 4593 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.embedded.tomcat.TomcatWebServer  : Tomcat started on port(s): 8080 (http) with context path ''
2019-04-29 11:53:49.380  INFO 4593 --- [           main] io.minimal.Minimal                       : Started Minimal in 2.525 seconds (JVM running for 2.9)
2019-04-29 11:54:01.267  INFO 4593 --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.a.c.c.C.[Tomcat].[localhost].[/]       : Initializing Spring DispatcherServlet 'dispatcherServlet'
2019-04-29 11:54:01.267  INFO 4593 --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.s.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet        : Initializing Servlet 'dispatcherServlet'
2019-04-29 11:54:01.286  INFO 4593 --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.s.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet        : Completed initialization in 19 ms
MINIMAL: INTERCEPTOR PREHANDLE CALLED
MINIMAL: GETMINIMAL()
MINIMAL: INTERCEPTOR POSTHANDLE CALLED
MINIMAL: INTERCEPTOR AFTERCOMPLETION CALLED

You might also consider using the open source SpringSandwich library which lets you directly annotate in your Spring Boot controllers which interceptors to apply, much in the same way you annotate your url routes.

That way, no typo-prone Strings floating around -- SpringSandwich's method and class annotations easily survive refactoring and make it clear what's being applied where. (Disclosure: I'm the author).

http://springsandwich.com/

To add interceptor to a spring boot application, do the following

1. Create an interceptor class

   public class MyCustomInterceptor implements HandlerInterceptor{
   
       //unimplemented methods comes here. Define the following method so that it     
       //will handle the request before it is passed to the controller.
   
       @Override
       public boolean preHandle(HttpServletRequest request,HttpServletResponse  response){
       //your custom logic here.
           return true;
       }
   }
   

2. Define a configuration class

   @Configuration
   public class MyConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter{
       @Override
       public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry){
           registry.addInterceptor(new MyCustomInterceptor()).addPathPatterns("/**");
       }
   }
   

3. Thats it. Now all your requests will pass through the logic defined under preHandle() method of MyCustomInterceptor.