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Migrating the Spring Module

This version of Mule reached its End of Life on May 2, 2023, when Extended Support ended.

Deployments of new applications to CloudHub that use this version of Mule are no longer allowed. Only in-place updates to applications are permitted.

MuleSoft recommends that you upgrade to the latest version of Mule 4 that is in Standard Support so that your applications run with the latest fixes and security enhancements.

Mule 3 allowed to define Spring beans as part of the Mule application using the Spring DSL directly. This approach requires Mule applications to be exposed to the Spring versions and components that the runtime uses internally. This causes two problems:

  • Users were limited to the Spring version and modules available in the Mule runtime.

  • Any changes or upgrades in the runtime can potentially affect applications defining

To fix this problem in Mule 4, we decided to package our Spring support as a separate module. So, instead of defining your Spring beans directly on your application, you now have to define them in their own file and reference them through the Spring module.

Mule 3 example:
<mule>
    <spring:beans>
        <spring:bean name="xaConnectionFactory" class="org.apache.activemq.ActiveMQXAConnectionFactory">
            <spring:property name="brokerURL" value="vm://localhost?broker.persistent=false&amp;broker.useJmx=false" />
        </spring:bean>
    </spring:beans>

    <flow>
        ...
    </flow>
</mule>
Mule 4 example:
<mule>
    <spring:config name="springConfig" files="config/connection-factory-beans.xml"/>

    <flow>
        ...
    </flow>
</mule>
See Spring Module to find an example XML file and also further configuration instructions.

Configure Spring Module Dependencies in Mule 4

The Spring Module does not include any Spring dependency, you need to configure the dependencies you want to use.

Because Mule connector dependencies are isolated from each other and from the Mule application dependencies, after configuring Spring dependencies you also have to declare them as shared libraries to make these dependencies available for the Spring Module.

To configure Spring dependencies and also declare them as shared libraries, add the following to your application’s pom.xml:

<!-- These Properties define the plugin versions to use -->
<properties>
  <springVersion>4.3.17.RELEASE</springVersion>
  <springSecurityVersion>4.2.6.RELEASE</springSecurityVersion>
  <mule.maven.plugin.version>3.4.0</mule.maven.plugin.version>
</properties>

<build>
  <plugins>
  <!-- Only used to declare the shared libraries-->
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.mule.tools.maven</groupId>
      <artifactId>mule-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>${mule.maven.plugin.version}</version>
      <configuration>
        <!-- Configure the Spring dependencies as Shared Libraries -->
        <sharedLibraries>
          <sharedLibrary>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-core</artifactId>
          </sharedLibrary>
          <sharedLibrary>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
          </sharedLibrary>
          <sharedLibrary>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
          </sharedLibrary>
          <sharedLibrary>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
          </sharedLibrary>
          <sharedLibrary>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
          </sharedLibrary>
        </sharedLibraries>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

<!-- These are the Spring dependencies to configure -->
<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-core</artifactId>
    <version>${springSecurityVersion}</version>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
    <version>${springVersion}</version>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
    <version>${springVersion}</version>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
    <version>${springVersion}</version>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
    <version>${springSecurityVersion}</version>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

Add the Spring Module to your Mule 4 Project

To use the Spring module, add it to your application using the Studio palette or add the following dependency in your pom.xml file:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.mule.modules</groupId>
  <artifactId>mule-spring-module</artifactId>
  <version>1.2.0</version>
  <classifier>mule-plugin</classifier>
</dependency>