Invoking web service from Liferay portal using proxy - proxy

Question

I'm trying to invoke web service from Liferay portal using proxy. I already managed to do so on IBM WebSphere portal, like this (invoking 'help'):
<portal_context_path>/proxy/http/<server_url>/<application_name>/help?lang=myLang&object=myObject
I'm making a call using ajax:
try {
$.ajax({
url: 'http://localhost:8080/LiferayTest-portlet/proxy/http/localhost:9081/ServiceApp/help?lang=myLang&object=myObject',
headers: {
'Accept': 'application/xml; charset=utf-8',
'Content-Type': 'application/xml; charset=utf-8'
},
success: function(xml) {
...
},
error: function(xhr, textStatus, errorThrown) {
...
}
});
} catch (e) {
...
}
The thing is, if I make that ajax call on Liferay portal, I get error (404 Not found), but if I call it from WebSphere portal (URL:http://localhost:10039/.WebSphereTest/proxy/http/localhost:9081/ServiceApp/help?lang=myLang&object=myObject), it works.
Is there a similar way (like using /proxy/http) to accomplish this on Liferay portal?

Answer 1

Is your application running inside of Liferay, and you're trying to call something outside, through a proxy? In that case accessing Web Services is just like anywhere else. Use the library of your choice to do this. Liferay does not provide a proxy for you - I don't see what that would bring to the table if it did.
Edit: If you want to access your portlet's "resource" phase, e.g. the request phase that is typically used for Ajax, you'll just have to obtain a resource-URL from Liferay. URL generation is the business of the underlying platform and well standardized. You seem to be using a Websphere-specific way. In a JSP you'd just use <portlet:resourceURL/> to obtain the URL that's handled in your portlet's resource-phase e.g. serveResource(...).
Yet another option is to deploy servlet-based web services with your portlet (as it's technically only a web application) but this is totally outside of the portlet realm and would have nothing to do with Liferay at all.
Ruled out in the comments, I'll still leave this paragraph in here: In case you want to consume Liferay's own API Web Services, they're available as JSON and SOAP. The SOAP services are available on localhost only, unless you configure them to be available to more hosts. Just like before, I don't see the point of an explicit, platform provided, proxy.