Apache HTTPClient Timeout at any moment

Question

I'm making an HTTP connection using the Apache Common's HTTPClient. The connection type is POST, and the client will be reading an output from the connection. However I need to be able to abort the connection at any time regardless of the status of connection. What is the best way of doing this? Is there a built in timeout? Regards.

EDIT: Just to clarify the my question:
I would like the user to be able to choose when the connection is to be cut.
In other words similar functionality to the parameter cURL: CURLOPT_TIMEOUT https://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/CURLOPT_TIMEOUT.html

Answer 1

When you're instantiating the instance of httpClient using HttpClientBuilder, you can pass an instance of RequestConfig to the builder, which inturn accepts 2 parameters.

SocketTimeout - Defines the socket timeout (SO_TIMEOUT) in milliseconds, which is the timeout for waiting for data or, put differently, a maximum period inactivity between two consecutive data packets).

ConnectTimeout - Determines the timeout in milliseconds until a connection is established. A timeout value of zero is interpreted as an infinite timeout.

ConnectionRequestTimeout - Returns the timeout in milliseconds used when requesting a connection from the connection manager. A timeout value of zero is interpreted as an infinite timeout.

What you're looking for is SocketTimeout.

RequestConfig requestConfig = RequestConfig.custom().setConnectTimeout(CONNECTION_TIMEOUT)
                .setConnectionRequestTimeout(CONNECTION_TIMEOUT).setSocketTimeout(SOCKET_TIMEOUT).build();
httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().disableAutomaticRetries().setDefaultRequestConfig(requestConfig)
                .setConnectionManager(poolingHttpClientConnectionManager).disableRedirectHandling().build();

You can take a look at ConnectionKeepAliveStrategy. Refer to "2.6. Connection keep alive strategy" section of page

Answer 2

If you're using DefaultHttpClient, it accepts HttpParams where you can provide connection related settings.

SO_TIMEOUT is the SocketTimeout - Defines the socket timeout (SO_TIMEOUT) in milliseconds, which is the timeout for waiting for data or, put differently, a maximum period inactivity between two consecutive data packets).

HttpParams httpParams = new BasicHttpParams();
httpParams.setIntParameter(CoreConnectionPNames.CONNECTION_TIMEOUT, CONNECTION_TIMEOUT);
httpParams.setIntParameter(CoreConnectionPNames.SO_TIMEOUT, SOCKET_TIMEOUT);
DefaultHttpClient backend = new DefaultHttpClient(httpParams);

A better way of doing it is by using HttpClientBuilder as @Bandi Kishore suggested. or by making use of PoolingClientConnectionManager which accepts these settings directly using setters.