spring basic auth for HTTP bean configuration

basic-auth.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="
	    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-4.1.xsd">

    <bean id="restTemplate" class="org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate">
        <constructor-arg ref="httpClientFactory" />
        <property name="messageConverters">
            <list>
                <bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.GsonHttpMessageConverter" />
            </list>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <bean id="httpClientFactory" class="org.springframework.http.client.HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory">
        <constructor-arg ref="httpClient" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="httpClient" class="org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient">
        <property name="credentialsProvider" ref="credentialProvider"/>
    </bean>

    <!-- Credentials provider needed by apache default http client -->
    <bean id="credentialProvider" class="org.apache.http.impl.client.BasicCredentialsProvider" />

    <!-- Used to invoke a method in BasicCredentialsProvider.  This has to be done this way as BasicCredentialsProvider does not take
    provider and credentials in constructor or setter method.  It has to set by invoking setCredentials() method and passing two arguments -->
    <bean id="methodInvoke" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">
        <property name="targetObject" ref="credentialProvider"/>
        <property name="targetMethod" value="setCredentials"> </property>
        <property name="arguments"  >
            <list>
                <ref bean="authScope" />
                <ref bean="credentials" />
            </list>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <!-- Authorization scope for accessing restful service.  Since we want this template to be used for everything, we are setting up it with defaults -->
    <bean id="authScope" class="org.apache.http.auth.AuthScope">
        <constructor-arg name="host"><null /></constructor-arg>
        <constructor-arg><value>-1</value> </constructor-arg>
        <constructor-arg><null /></constructor-arg>
        <constructor-arg><null /></constructor-arg>
    </bean>

    <!-- Username and Password Credentials to access restful service -->
    <bean id="credentials" class="org.apache.http.auth.UsernamePasswordCredentials">
        <constructor-arg name="userName"><value>john.doe</value></constructor-arg>
        <constructor-arg name="password"><value>johnspassword</value></constructor-arg>
    </bean>
</beans>