I’m working on a project where I need to connect to LinkedIn’s API using Apache Camel combined with Spring. I’m pretty new to this whole setup and could really use some guidance on the proper approach.
Basically, I want to fetch user profile data and maybe some connection information from LinkedIn, but I’m not sure about the best way to configure the Camel routes and Spring beans for this integration.
What would be the recommended steps to set this up? Should I use any specific Camel components for REST calls, or is there a LinkedIn-specific component available? Also, how should I handle the OAuth authentication flow within the Camel context?
Any code examples or configuration snippets would be super helpful. I’ve been searching around but most examples I find are either too basic or don’t show the complete integration pattern.
linkedin oauth is kinda tricky with camel, but i found using http4 component for api calls to be solid. just handle auth tokens in a diff spring service. keep your access token in camel headers while passing between routes. worked well for my project last year!
Been down this road before - the key thing nobody mentions is handling LinkedIn’s API versioning properly. Create a custom processor bean in Spring that manages the API version headers since LinkedIn’s aggressive about deprecating older endpoints. From my experience, camel-netty-http gave me better performance than standard HTTP components when dealing with multiple concurrent profile fetches. The real gotcha is LinkedIn’s connection API has weird pagination quirks - implement proper cursor-based pagination in your routes instead of trying to fetch everything at once. Their profile API response structure changes based on user privacy settings, so build your unmarshalling logic to handle missing fields gracefully. I ended up creating separate route definitions for different profile data types since handling everything in one route became a debugging nightmare.
For LinkedIn API with Camel and Spring, go with camel-http instead of http4 - it’s way better maintained. The biggest pain point is OAuth token management. I built a separate TokenManager bean that auto-refreshes tokens before they expire, which saved me tons of headaches. Set up your Camel context with separate routes for each LinkedIn endpoint (profile, connections, whatever you need) and use shared error handling across all of them. Watch out for LinkedIn’s rate limiting - it’ll bite you if you’re not careful. Use the throttle() EIP in your routes to stay under their limits. Here’s what I learned the hard way: don’t handle the initial OAuth authorization inside Camel routes. Use a Spring controller for the callback and token exchange instead, then store those tokens somewhere your Camel routes can grab them. Keeps everything much cleaner and easier to maintain.