Nats
Since Camel 2.17
Both producer and consumer are supported
NATS is a fast and reliable messaging platform.
Maven users will need to add the following dependency to their pom.xml for this component.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
<artifactId>camel-nats</artifactId>
<!-- use the same version as your Camel core version -->
<version>x.y.z</version>
</dependency> Configuring Options
Camel components are configured on two separate levels:
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component level
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endpoint level
Configuring Component Options
At the component level, you set general and shared configurations that are, then, inherited by the endpoints. It is the highest configuration level.
For example, a component may have security settings, credentials for authentication, urls for network connection and so forth.
Some components only have a few options, and others may have many. Because components typically have pre-configured defaults that are commonly used, then you may often only need to configure a few options on a component; or none at all.
You can configure components using:
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the Component DSL.
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in a configuration file (
application.properties,*.yamlfiles, etc). -
directly in the Java code.
Configuring Endpoint Options
You usually spend more time setting up endpoints because they have many options. These options help you customize what you want the endpoint to do. The options are also categorized into whether the endpoint is used as a consumer (from), as a producer (to), or both.
Configuring endpoints is most often done directly in the endpoint URI as path and query parameters. You can also use the Endpoint DSL and DataFormat DSL as a type safe way of configuring endpoints and data formats in Java.
A good practice when configuring options is to use Property Placeholders.
Property placeholders provide a few benefits:
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They help prevent using hardcoded urls, port numbers, sensitive information, and other settings.
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They allow externalizing the configuration from the code.
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They help the code to become more flexible and reusable.
The following two sections list all the options, firstly for the component followed by the endpoint.
Component Options
The Nats component supports the following options which are listed below.
| Name | Description | Default | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
To use a shared configuration. | NatsConfiguration | ||
Timeout for connection attempts. (in milliseconds). | 2000 | int | |
Define if we want to flush connection when stopping or not. | true | boolean | |
Set the flush timeout (in milliseconds). | 1000 | int | |
Sets whether to enable JetStream support for this endpoint. | false | boolean | |
Sets the name of the JetStream stream to use. | String | ||
maximum number of pings have not received a response allowed by the client. | 2 | int | |
Max reconnection attempts. | 60 | int | |
Turn off echo. If supported by the gnatsd version you are connecting to this flag will prevent the server from echoing messages back to the connection if it has subscriptions on the subject being published to. | false | boolean | |
Whether or not randomizing the order of servers for the connection attempts. | false | boolean | |
Whether or not running in pedantic mode (this affects performance). | false | boolean | |
Ping interval to be aware if connection is still alive (in milliseconds). | 120000 | int | |
Whether or not using reconnection feature. | true | boolean | |
Waiting time before attempts reconnection (in milliseconds). | 2000 | int | |
Interval to clean up cancelled/timed out requests. | 5000 | int | |
URLs to one or more NAT servers. Use comma to separate URLs when specifying multiple servers. | String | ||
Whether or not running in verbose mode. | false | boolean | |
Acknowledgement mode. none = Messages are acknowledged as soon as the server sends them (danger: messages that Camel failed to process is also ack). Clients do not need to ack. all = All messages with a sequence number less than the message acked are also acknowledged. E.g. reading a batch of messages 1..100. Ack on message 100 will acknowledge 1..99 as well. explicit (default) = Each message is acknowledged individually by Camel after the message has been processed, this ensures the message is only ack if success and nack if processing failed due to an exception during routing. Message can be acked out of sequence and create gaps of unacknowledged messages in the consumer. Enum values:
| Explicit | AckPolicy | |
After a message is delivered to a consumer, the server waits 30 seconds (default) for an acknowledgement. If none arrives (timeout), the message becomes eligible for redelivery. | 30000 | long | |
Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler, which mean any exceptions (if possible) occurred while the Camel consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages, or the likes, will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. Important: This is only possible if the 3rd party component allows Camel to be alerted if an exception was thrown. Some components handle this internally only, and therefore bridgeErrorHandler is not possible. In other situations we may improve the Camel component to hook into the 3rd party component and make this possible for future releases. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions, that will be logged at WARN or ERROR level and ignored. | false | boolean | |
Sets the name to assign to the JetStream durable consumer. Setting this value makes the consumer durable. The value is used to set the durable() field in the underlying NATS ConsumerConfiguration.Builder. | String | ||
Whether to allow doing manual acknowledgment via NatsManualAck. If this option is enabled then an instance of NatsManualAck is stored on the org.apache.camel.Exchange message header, which allows end users to access this API and perform manual ack/nak/term operations via the JetStream consumer. When enabled, the automatic acknowledgment on exchange completion is disabled. If the user does not call any ack method, the message remains unacknowledged and NATS will redeliver it after the ackWait timeout expires. This option is only applicable when JetStream is enabled (jetstreamEnabled=true). It has no effect when ackPolicy=None since the server acknowledges messages automatically on delivery. | false | boolean | |
Maximum number of attempts to deliver a message from Nats to a consumer. Once MaxDeliver is reached, the NATS server stops attempting to deliver that specific message. The message is not deleted, it remains in the stream but is simply skipped. It is recommended to set this option to a sensible value in case a message is poison and can not successfully be processed and would always keep failing. | long | ||
Stop receiving messages from a topic we are subscribing to after maxMessages. | String | ||
For negative acknowledgements (NAK), redelivery is delayed by 5 seconds (default). Setting this to 0 or negative makes the redelivery immediately. Be careful as this can cause the consumer to keep re-processing the same message over and over again due to intermediate error that last a while. | 5000 | long | |
Consumer thread pool size (default is 10). | 10 | int | |
Maximum number of messages to fetch per pull request when using a JetStream Pull Subscription. Only used when \{code pullSubscription=true}. | 10 | int | |
Maximum time (in milliseconds) to wait for a batch of messages to be available on the server during a single fetch when using a JetStream Pull Subscription. Only used when \{code pullSubscription=true}. | 1000 | long | |
Sets the consumer subscription type for JetStream. Set to true to use a Pull Subscription (consumer explicitly requests messages). Set to false to use a Push Subscription (messages are automatically delivered). | true | boolean | |
The Queue name if we are using nats for a queue configuration. | String | ||
Can be used to turn off sending back reply message in the consumer. | false | boolean | |
Sets a custom ConsumerConfiguration object for the JetStream consumer. This is an advanced option typically used when you need to configure properties not exposed as simple Camel URI parameters. When set, this object will be used to build the final consumer subscription options. | ConsumerConfiguration | ||
Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing. | false | boolean | |
the subject to which subscribers should send response. | String | ||
Request timeout in milliseconds. | 20000 | long | |
Whether autowiring is enabled. This is used for automatic autowiring options (the option must be marked as autowired) by looking up in the registry to find if there is a single instance of matching type, which then gets configured on the component. This can be used for automatic configuring JDBC data sources, JMS connection factories, AWS Clients, etc. | true | boolean | |
Reference an already instantiated connection to Nats server. | Connection | ||
To use a custom header filter strategy. | HeaderFilterStrategy | ||
Sets whether to operate JetStream requests asynchronously. | true | boolean | |
Whether or not connection trace messages should be printed to standard out for fine grained debugging of connection issues. | false | boolean | |
If we use useCredentialsFile to true we’ll need to set the credentialsFilePath option. It can be loaded by default from classpath, but you can prefix with classpath:, file:, or http: to load the resource from different systems. | String | ||
Set secure option indicating TLS is required. | false | boolean | |
To configure security using SSLContextParameters. | SSLContextParameters | ||
Enable usage of global SSL context parameters. | false | boolean |
Endpoint Options
The Nats endpoint is configured using URI syntax:
nats:topic
With the following path and query parameters:
Query Parameters
| Name | Description | Default | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
Timeout for connection attempts. (in milliseconds). | 2000 | int | |
Define if we want to flush connection when stopping or not. | true | boolean | |
Set the flush timeout (in milliseconds). | 1000 | int | |
Sets whether to enable JetStream support for this endpoint. | false | boolean | |
Sets the name of the JetStream stream to use. | String | ||
maximum number of pings have not received a response allowed by the client. | 2 | int | |
Max reconnection attempts. | 60 | int | |
Turn off echo. If supported by the gnatsd version you are connecting to this flag will prevent the server from echoing messages back to the connection if it has subscriptions on the subject being published to. | false | boolean | |
Whether or not randomizing the order of servers for the connection attempts. | false | boolean | |
Whether or not running in pedantic mode (this affects performance). | false | boolean | |
Ping interval to be aware if connection is still alive (in milliseconds). | 120000 | int | |
Whether or not using reconnection feature. | true | boolean | |
Waiting time before attempts reconnection (in milliseconds). | 2000 | int | |
Interval to clean up cancelled/timed out requests. | 5000 | int | |
URLs to one or more NAT servers. Use comma to separate URLs when specifying multiple servers. | String | ||
Whether or not running in verbose mode. | false | boolean | |
Acknowledgement mode. none = Messages are acknowledged as soon as the server sends them (danger: messages that Camel failed to process is also ack). Clients do not need to ack. all = All messages with a sequence number less than the message acked are also acknowledged. E.g. reading a batch of messages 1..100. Ack on message 100 will acknowledge 1..99 as well. explicit (default) = Each message is acknowledged individually by Camel after the message has been processed, this ensures the message is only ack if success and nack if processing failed due to an exception during routing. Message can be acked out of sequence and create gaps of unacknowledged messages in the consumer. Enum values:
| Explicit | AckPolicy | |
After a message is delivered to a consumer, the server waits 30 seconds (default) for an acknowledgement. If none arrives (timeout), the message becomes eligible for redelivery. | 30000 | long | |
Sets the name to assign to the JetStream durable consumer. Setting this value makes the consumer durable. The value is used to set the durable() field in the underlying NATS ConsumerConfiguration.Builder. | String | ||
Whether to allow doing manual acknowledgment via NatsManualAck. If this option is enabled then an instance of NatsManualAck is stored on the org.apache.camel.Exchange message header, which allows end users to access this API and perform manual ack/nak/term operations via the JetStream consumer. When enabled, the automatic acknowledgment on exchange completion is disabled. If the user does not call any ack method, the message remains unacknowledged and NATS will redeliver it after the ackWait timeout expires. This option is only applicable when JetStream is enabled (jetstreamEnabled=true). It has no effect when ackPolicy=None since the server acknowledges messages automatically on delivery. | false | boolean | |
Maximum number of attempts to deliver a message from Nats to a consumer. Once MaxDeliver is reached, the NATS server stops attempting to deliver that specific message. The message is not deleted, it remains in the stream but is simply skipped. It is recommended to set this option to a sensible value in case a message is poison and can not successfully be processed and would always keep failing. | long | ||
Stop receiving messages from a topic we are subscribing to after maxMessages. | String | ||
For negative acknowledgements (NAK), redelivery is delayed by 5 seconds (default). Setting this to 0 or negative makes the redelivery immediately. Be careful as this can cause the consumer to keep re-processing the same message over and over again due to intermediate error that last a while. | 5000 | long | |
Consumer thread pool size (default is 10). | 10 | int | |
Maximum number of messages to fetch per pull request when using a JetStream Pull Subscription. Only used when \{code pullSubscription=true}. | 10 | int | |
Maximum time (in milliseconds) to wait for a batch of messages to be available on the server during a single fetch when using a JetStream Pull Subscription. Only used when \{code pullSubscription=true}. | 1000 | long | |
Sets the consumer subscription type for JetStream. Set to true to use a Pull Subscription (consumer explicitly requests messages). Set to false to use a Push Subscription (messages are automatically delivered). | true | boolean | |
The Queue name if we are using nats for a queue configuration. | String | ||
Can be used to turn off sending back reply message in the consumer. | false | boolean | |
Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler, which mean any exceptions (if possible) occurred while the Camel consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages, or the likes, will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. Important: This is only possible if the 3rd party component allows Camel to be alerted if an exception was thrown. Some components handle this internally only, and therefore bridgeErrorHandler is not possible. In other situations we may improve the Camel component to hook into the 3rd party component and make this possible for future releases. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions, that will be logged at WARN or ERROR level and ignored. | false | boolean | |
Sets a custom ConsumerConfiguration object for the JetStream consumer. This is an advanced option typically used when you need to configure properties not exposed as simple Camel URI parameters. When set, this object will be used to build the final consumer subscription options. | ConsumerConfiguration | ||
To let the consumer use a custom ExceptionHandler. Notice if the option bridgeErrorHandler is enabled then this option is not in use. By default the consumer will deal with exceptions, that will be logged at WARN or ERROR level and ignored. | ExceptionHandler | ||
Sets the exchange pattern when the consumer creates an exchange. Enum values:
| ExchangePattern | ||
the subject to which subscribers should send response. | String | ||
Request timeout in milliseconds. | 20000 | long | |
Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing. | false | boolean | |
Reference an already instantiated connection to Nats server. | Connection | ||
To use a custom header filter strategy. | HeaderFilterStrategy | ||
Sets whether to operate JetStream requests asynchronously. | true | boolean | |
Whether or not connection trace messages should be printed to standard out for fine grained debugging of connection issues. | false | boolean | |
If we use useCredentialsFile to true we’ll need to set the credentialsFilePath option. It can be loaded by default from classpath, but you can prefix with classpath:, file:, or http: to load the resource from different systems. | String | ||
Set secure option indicating TLS is required. | false | boolean | |
To configure security using SSLContextParameters. | SSLContextParameters |
Message Headers
The Nats component supports the following message header(s), which is/are listed below:
| Name | Description | Default | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
CamelNatsMessageTimestamp (common) Constant: | The timestamp of a consumed message. | long | |
| Constant: | The SID of a consumed message. | String | |
| Constant: | The ReplyTo of a consumed message (may be null). | String | |
| Constant: | The Subject of a consumed message. | String | |
| Constant: | The Queue name of a consumed message (may be null). | String | |
CamelNatsStatusCode (consumer) Constant: | Status message code. | int | |
CamelNatsStatusError (consumer) Constant: | Status message error message. | String | |
CamelNatsDeliveryCounter (consumer) Constant: | Number of times this message has been delivered (1 = first, 1 then message has been redelivered). | long | |
| Constant: | The manual acknowledgment handle for JetStream messages (only set when manualAck=true). | NatsManualAck |
Message Body
The message body at each side of the Nats component: Consumer is the body of the messages the consumer creates, Consumer reply the bodies a consumer that answers its caller can reply with, Producer input the bodies the producer can send or write, and Producer output the body after the producer.
| Side | Body | Description |
|---|---|---|
Consumer |
| The payload of the NATS message as a byte array, empty for a message without one: convert or unmarshal it. |
Consumer reply |
| Only with exchangePattern=InOut is a core NATS message with a reply subject answered, with the body the route ends with: text, bytes, a stream or a file, and no body sends an empty reply. A Map or a POJO sends no reply, and the requester times out.
|
Producer input |
| What converts to a byte array: text, bytes, a stream or a file. A Map or a POJO is sent as its toString(), and a List or no body fails: marshal it first. |
Producer output |
| Unchanged for a message that expects no reply (InOnly). A message that expects one (InOut) waits for the reply, up to requestTimeout, and gets its payload as a byte array.
|
The bodies are the ones with the default options. A side that is not listed is not known, and tooling does not guess it. The carriers, the sides and the tools that use them are described in Message Body Types.
Usage
Configuring servers
You configure the NATS servers on either the component or the endpoint.
For example, to configure this once on the component, you can do:
NatsComponent nats = context.getComponent("nats", NatsComponent.class);
nats.setServers("someserver:4222,someotherserver:42222"); Notice how you can specify multiple servers separated by comma.
Or you can specify the servers in the endpoint URI
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Java
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XML
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YAML
from("direct:send").to("nats:test?servers=localhost:4222"); <route>
<from uri="direct:send"/>
<to uri="nats:test?servers=localhost:4222"/>
</route> - route:
from:
uri: direct:send
steps:
- to:
uri: nats:test
parameters:
servers: localhost:4222 The endpoint configuration will override any server configuration on the component level.
Configuring username and password or token
You can specify username and password for the servers in the server URLs, where its username:password@url, or token@url etc:
NatsComponent nats = context.getComponent("nats", NatsComponent.class);
nats.setServers("scott:tiger@someserver:4222,superman:123@someotherserver:42222"); If you are using Camel Main or Spring Boot, you can configure the server urls in the application.properties file
camel.component.nats.servers=scott:tiger@someserver:4222,superman:123@someotherserver:42222 Request/Reply support
The producer supports request/reply: when the exchange pattern is InOut, it waits for the reply message, up to requestTimeout, and the payload of the reply becomes the message body, as a byte array.
The consumer sends back the message body as the reply message, when routing the message is complete, if the message has a reply subject and the consumer has exchangePattern=InOut. The body must convert to a byte array: text, bytes, a stream or a file. A body that does not, such as a Map, sends no reply.
A consumer replies when its exchangePattern is InOut, the message has a reply subject, replyToDisabled is false, and the exchange did not fail (NATS has no error reply, so a failed exchange is not answered and the requester times out). The body the route ends with is converted to a byte array and published to the reply subject:
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A route that ends with no body sends an empty reply (0 bytes), so the requester gets an answer.
-
A body that does not convert to a byte array, such as a
Mapor a POJO, is not sent. No reply is published, and the error goes to the exception handler of the consumer, which logs it at WARN level by default. Convert the body in the route, for example to JSON or aString, before the route ends.
Replies are for core NATS only. The reply subject of a JetStream message is its ack subject, so a consumer with jetstreamEnabled=true never replies to a JetStream message, even when exchangePattern is InOut. The consumer logs a WARN when it starts with this combination.
Examples
Producer example
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Java
-
XML
-
YAML
from("direct:send")
.to("nats:mytopic"); <route>
<from uri="direct:send"/>
<to uri="nats:mytopic"/>
</route> - route:
from:
uri: direct:send
steps:
- to:
uri: nats:mytopic In case of using authorization, you can directly specify your credentials in the server URL
-
Java
-
XML
-
YAML
from("direct:send")
.to("nats:mytopic?servers=username:password@localhost:4222"); <route>
<from uri="direct:send"/>
<to uri="nats:mytopic?servers=username:password@localhost:4222"/>
</route> - route:
from:
uri: direct:send
steps:
- to:
uri: nats:mytopic
parameters:
servers: "username:password@localhost:4222" or your token
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Java
-
XML
-
YAML
from("direct:send")
.to("nats:mytopic?servers=token@localhost:4222"); <route>
<from uri="direct:send"/>
<to uri="nats:mytopic?servers=token@localhost:4222"/>
</route> - route:
from:
uri: direct:send
steps:
- to:
uri: nats:mytopic
parameters:
servers: "token@localhost:4222" Consumer example
-
Java
-
XML
-
YAML
from("nats:mytopic?maxMessages=5&queueName=myqueue")
.to("mock:result"); <route>
<from uri="nats:mytopic?maxMessages=5&queueName=myqueue"/>
<to uri="mock:result"/>
</route> - route:
from:
uri: nats:mytopic
parameters:
maxMessages: 5
queueName: myqueue
steps:
- to:
uri: mock:result Manual Acknowledgment (JetStream)
When consuming from JetStream, by default messages are automatically acknowledged after successful route processing, or negatively acknowledged (redelivered) on failure.
To take full control of acknowledgment, set manualAck=true on the consumer endpoint. This disables automatic acknowledgment and exposes a NatsManualAck object as the CamelNatsManualAck message header.
from("nats:mytopic?jetstreamEnabled=true&jetstreamName=mystream&durableName=myconsumer&pullSubscription=false&manualAck=true")
.process(exchange -> {
// do work ...
NatsManualAck manualAck = exchange.getIn().getHeader("CamelNatsManualAck", NatsManualAck.class);
manualAck.ack();
}); If the route completes without calling any NatsManualAck method, the message remains unacknowledged and NATS will redeliver it after ackWait expires (default 30 seconds).
JetStream push consumer whose consumer was deleted
With jetstreamEnabled=true and pullSubscription=false, the server deletes an ephemeral JetStream consumer (no durableName, and no durable name in the consumerConfiguration) after about 5 seconds without a subscriber, for example while the client is disconnected, and loses it on a restart. After every reconnect the Camel consumer asks the server for its consumer, and subscribes again when its ephemeral consumer is gone:
-
The new consumer starts at the first message the route did not acknowledge, so the route can see again the messages after that one (with
ackPolicy=None, after the last message delivered). A message that was not acknowledged and was already deliveredmaxDelivertimes does not count, as the server does not deliver it again. -
When nothing was delivered yet, a consumer with the deliver policy
New(orLast) starts after (or at) the last message of the stream at the subscribe. -
On a stream with
WorkQueueretention, and on a stream that was created again since the route subscribed, the new consumer uses the consumer configuration as it is (from the first message of the new stream forNewandLast). -
When the consumer cannot be checked or created again (for example JetStream is not ready yet after a server restart, or the stream is gone until it is created again), the Camel consumer keeps trying while the route runs, a few times a second apart and then up to every 30 seconds, and logs a WARN after the first attempts.
A durable consumer is not created again: when it is gone (deleted by an administrator, or after its inactiveThreshold), the Camel consumer logs a WARN and keeps its subscription, and messages arrive again when the durable is created again with the same deliver subject.
The consumer is checked only after a reconnect. A consumer that is deleted while the connection stays up (for example with nats consumer rm) is not detected, and the route receives nothing more until it is restarted.