This example illustrates how to use Spring Boot with Camel. It implements a path-based reverse proxy using platform-http: requests received under /reverse-proxy/** are forwarded to a fixed backend, with the /reverse-proxy prefix stripped and the remaining path and query string preserved.
The project uses camel-platform-http-starter component as the implementation for platform-http-engine and camel-http-starter to implement the producer calling the http endpoint. The consumer enables the stripUriPrefix option, which makes the CamelHttpPath header relative to the /reverse-proxy consumer path instead of the full raw request path. The producer then uses the http component’s bridgeEndpoint option, which is the idiomatic way to build a reverse proxy with camel-http: the endpoint URI supplies the fixed backend (configured via the reverse-proxy.target-base-uri property, defaulting to http://httpbin.org), and the CamelHttpPath/CamelHttpQuery headers from the incoming request are appended to it automatically.
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Note
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This is a reverse proxy reachable at a known path (/reverse-proxy/…), not a forward/HTTP-CONNECT proxy. Servlet containers such as the one backing platform-http normalize an absolute-form request line (as sent by curl --proxy) down to just the request path, discarding the target host - so a client can’t point an HTTP forward proxy at this application. Talk to it directly instead, as shown below.
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You can run this example using:
mvn spring-boot:runAfter the Spring Boot application is started, you can execute the following HTTP request:
curl http://localhost:8080/reverse-proxy/get?arg1=val1 -H 'accept: application/json'The command calls /reverse-proxy/get on the application, which forwards it to http://httpbin.org/get, you should see the Camel headers from both request and response in the log. Something similar to:
INFO 70370 --- [ad #1 - WireTap] header-request : {accept=application/json, arg1=val1, CamelHttpCharacterEncoding=UTF-8, CamelHttpMethod=GET, CamelHttpPath=/reverse-proxy/get, CamelHttpQuery=arg1=val1, CamelHttpServletRequest=org.apache.catalina.connector.RequestFacade@4f31b074, CamelHttpServletResponse=org.springframework.web.context.request.async.StandardServletAsyncWebRequest$LifecycleHttpServletResponse@158137c0, CamelHttpUri=/reverse-proxy/get, CamelHttpUrl=http://localhost:8080/reverse-proxy/get, CamelPlatformHttpContextPath=/, host=localhost:8080, user-agent=curl/8.9.1}
INFO 70370 --- [ad #2 - WireTap] header-response : {accept=application/json, Access-Control-Allow-Credentials=true, Access-Control-Allow-Origin=*, arg1=val1, CamelHttpCharacterEncoding=UTF-8, CamelHttpMethod=GET, CamelHttpPath=/get, CamelHttpQuery=arg1=val1, CamelHttpResponseCode=200, CamelHttpResponseText=OK, CamelHttpServletRequest=org.apache.catalina.connector.RequestFacade@4f31b074, CamelHttpServletResponse=org.springframework.web.context.request.async.StandardServletAsyncWebRequest$LifecycleHttpServletResponse@158137c0, CamelHttpUri=/get, CamelHttpUrl=http://localhost:8080/reverse-proxy/get, CamelPlatformHttpContextPath=/, Connection=keep-alive, Content-Length=387, Content-Type=application/json, Date=Thu, 04 Sep 2025 11:59:30 GMT, Server=gunicorn/19.9.0}
Note that CamelHttpUrl always reflects the incoming request’s own URL (this application’s own address), not the backend - it is set by the servlet container from the inbound request and is unrelated to where the request is forwarded. Do not use it to build the forwarding target, as that leads to the proxy calling itself.
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Caution
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The consumer path deliberately avoids the literal segment proxy (i.e. it is not platform-http:proxy). That exact path is a reserved marker in camel-platform-http: matching it turns the endpoint into a catch-all consumer that is meant to build a Host-header-based forward proxy, but that behavior is only implemented by the Vert.x platform-http engine - camel-platform-http-starter (the Spring MVC/servlet engine used by this example) has no such logic. Using platform-http:proxy here silently degrades into an unguarded catch-all consumer with no forwarding logic at all, matching unrelated paths (even /error) instead of returning a normal 404.
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The Spring Boot application can be stopped pressing [CTRL] + [C] in the shell.
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