On Mon, 12 Mar 2001, Johan Compagner wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Is it really true that everything that is in the webapp context must be served by
>the webapp?
>
I would say the answer to this question is "yes", but the definition of
the term "servlet container" would include the web server you are running
behind. Thus, both of the following two approaches are legal:
* Have the web server serve static resources and the servlet add-on
server dynamic resources (the way Apache+Tomcat works)
* Have the web server forward all requests underneath the context path
to the servlet add-on (the way ServletExec appears to work)
Note that the combined "container" in either scenario should still respect
all of the requirements of the servlet spec. This was not explicit in
Servlet 2.2 (and Apache+Tomcat violates this principle, because it ignores
things like the security constraint settings in web.xml), but is
likely to become explicit in 2.3. Doing the "pass all requests to the
servlet add-on" approach is certainly an easier way to accomplish this,
but it is still not required.
Craig McClanahan
