ControlBus

The Control Bus from the EIP patterns allows for the integration system to be monitored and managed from within the framework.

Use a Control Bus to manage an enterprise integration system. The Control Bus uses the same messaging mechanism used by the application data, but uses separate channels to transmit data that is relevant to the management of components involved in the message flow.

In Camel you can manage and monitor using JMX, or by using a Java API from the CamelContext, or from the org.apache.camel.api.management package,
or use the event notifier which has an example here.

From Camel 2.11 onwards we have introduced a new ControlBus Component that allows you to send messages to a control bus Endpoint that reacts accordingly.

ControlBus Component

Available as of Camel 2.11

The controlbus: component provides easy management of Camel applications based on the Control Bus EIP pattern.
For example, by sending a message to an Endpoint you can control the lifecycle of routes, or gather performance statistics.

controlbus:command[?options]

Where command can be any string to identify which type of command to use.

Commands

Options

You can append query options to the URI in the following format, ?option=value&option=value&...

Samples

Using route command

The route command allows you to do common tasks on a given route very easily, for example to start a route, you can send an empty message to this endpoint:

template.sendBody("controlbus:route?routeId=foo&action=start", null);

To get the status of the route, you can do:

String status = template.requestBody("controlbus:route?routeId=foo&action=status", null, String.class);

Getting performance statistics

Available as of Camel 2.11.1

This requires JMX to be enabled (is by default) then you can get the performance statics per route, or for the CamelContext. For example to get the statics for a route named foo, we can do:

String xml = template.requestBody("controlbus:route?routeId=foo&action=stats", null, String.class);

The returned statics is in XML format. Its the same data you can get from JMX with the dumpRouteStatsAsXml operation on the ManagedRouteMBean.

To get statics for the entire CamelContext you just omit the routeId parameter as shown below:

String xml = template.requestBody("controlbus:route?action=stats", null, String.class);

Using Simple language

You can use the Simple language with the control bus, for example to stop a specific route, you can send a message to the "controlbus:language:simple" endpoint containing the following message:

template.sendBody("controlbus:language:simple", "${camelContext.stopRoute('myRoute')}");

As this is a void operation, no result is returned. However, if you want the route status you can do:

String status = template.requestBody("controlbus:language:simple", "${camelContext.getRouteStatus('myRoute')}", String.class);

Notice: its easier to use the route command to control lifecycle of routes. The language command allows you to execute a language script that has stronger powers such as Groovy or to some extend the Simple language.

For example to shutdown Camel itself you can do:

template.sendBody("controlbus:language:simple?async=true", "${camelContext.stop()}");

Notice we use async=true to stop Camel asynchronously as otherwise we would be trying to stop Camel while it was in-flight processing the message we sent to the control bus component.

You can also use other languages such as Groovy, etc.

See Also

• Configuring Camel
• Component
• Endpoint
• Getting Started

• ControlBus EIP
• JMX Component
• Using JMX with Camel

Using This Pattern

If you would like to use this EIP Pattern then please read the Getting Started, you may also find the Architecture useful particularly the description of Endpoint and URIs. Then you could try out some of the Examples first before trying this pattern out.