I have a use case where I need to connect to a server via TCP. The protocol of the server expects a certain sequence of messages to initialize the communication channel. For example certain counters need to be synchronized before the first "real" message can be exchanged.
For example:

1. Camel sends synchronization request to Server
2. Server answers with a positive or negative response
3. Server sends a new message to Camel
4. Camel answers with a receipt
5. Message from Server will be transformed to a request of a 3rd service.
6. the response of the 3rd service is being transformed to the server format
7. response is being send to Server
8. Server replies with a receipt.

The whole communication with the Server has to happen through the same TCP connection. A new connection would require a new synchronization first.

Here is what camel route looks like:

<route startupOrder="10">
        <from uri="timer://test?delay=2s&amp;period=10000" />
        <to pattern="InOut" uri="direct:service"/>
        <log message="From Direct  -- ${body}"/>
      </route>
      <route startupOrder="1">
        <from uri="direct:service"/>
        <process ref="setBodyProcessor"/>
        <log message="The first TCP call  -- ${body}"/>
        <to uri="netty:tcp://remotehost:17080/test?encoders=#string-encoder&amp;disconnect=false&amp;sync=true&amp;clientMode=true&amp;synchronous=true" />
        <log message="The second TCP call  -- ${body}"/>
        <to uri="netty:tcp://remotehost:17080/test?encoders=#string-encoder&amp;disconnect=false&amp;sync=true&amp;clientMode=true&amp;synchronous=true" />
        <log message="The third TCP call  -- ${body}"/>
        <to uri="netty:tcp://remotehost:17080/test?encoders=#string-encoder&amp;disconnect=false&amp;sync=true&amp;clientMode=true&amp;synchronous=true" />
      </route>

I had the same camel-netty producer endpoint to invoke out multiple times, since there are multiple messages which have to be exchanged back and forth over the same connection.

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to force those multiple camel-netty producer endpoints to share the same TCP connection. The camel-netty producer endpoint always creates a new connection even though it was the same endpoint uri used.

We need allow multiple camel-netty producer endpoints (with the same uri) to use the same existing connection.