How to handle static content in Spring MVC

Question

I am developing a webapp using Spring MVC 3 and have the DispatcherServlet catching all requests to     like so  web xml       lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt app lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt org springframework web servlet DispatcherServlet lt  servlet-class gt     lt  servlet gt      lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt app lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   lt  url-pattern gt     lt  servlet-mapping gt    Now this works as advertised  however how can I handle static content  Previously  before using RESTful URLs  I would have caught all   html for example and sent that to the DispatcherServlet  but now it s a different ball game   I have a  static  folder which includes  styles    js    images  etc and I would like to exclude  static   from the DispatcherServlet   Now I could get static resources working when I did this      lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt app lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  app  lt  url-pattern gt     lt  servlet-mapping gt    But I want it to have nice URLs  the point of me using Spring MVC 3  not the landing page being www domain com app   I also don t want a solution coupled to tomcat or any other servlet container  and because this is  relatively  low traffic I don t need a webserver  like apache httpd  infront   Is there a clean solution to this

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There s another stack overflow post that has an excellent solution   It doesn t seem to be Tomcat specific  is simple  and works great   I ve tried a couple of the solutions in this post with spring mvc 3 1 but then had problems getting my dynamic content served   In brief  it says add a servlet mapping like this    lt servlet-mapping gt   lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt   lt url-pattern gt  images   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt

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My way of solving this problem is placing all your actions with a specific prefix like  web  or  service  and configure that all url s with that prefix will be intercepted by the DispatcherServlet

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From Spring 3  all the resources needs to mapped in a different way  You need to use the tag  to specify the location of the resources   Example     lt mvc resources mapping   resources     location   resources     gt    By doing this way  you are directing the dispatcher servlet to look into the directory resources to look for the static content

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Place static contents like css  js in following path  resources          - gt static                - gt css                - gt js  or   resources          - gt public                - gt css                - gt js

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The Problem is with URLPattern  Change your URL pattern on your servlet mapping from     to

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For java based spring configuration you can use the following   Using ResourceHandlerRegistry which stores registrations of resource handlers for serving static resources   More Info   WebMvcConfigurerAdapter which defines callback methods to customize the Java-based configuration for Spring MVC enabled via  EnableWebMvc    EnableWebMvc  Configurable  ComponentScan  package to scan   public class WebConfigurer extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter         Override     public void addResourceHandlers ResourceHandlerRegistry registry            registry addResourceHandler   static resource path   jpg   addResourceLocations  server destination path

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My own experience with this problem is as follows  Most Spring-related web pages and books seem to suggest that the most appropriate syntax is the following        lt mvc resources mapping   resources     location   resources     gt    The above syntax suggests that you can place your static resources  CSS  JavaScript  images  in a folder named  resources  in the root of your application  i e   webapp resources    However  in my experience  I am using Eclipse and the Tomcat plugin   the only approach that works is if you place your resources folder inside WEB INF  or META-INF   So  the syntax I recommend is the following        lt mvc resources mapping   resources     location   WEB-INF resources     gt    In your JSP  or similar    reference the resource as follows    lt script type  text javascript          src  resources my-javascript js  gt   lt  script gt    Needless to mention  the entire question only arose because I wanted my Spring dispatcher servlet  front controller  to intercept everything  everything dynamic  that is  So I have the following in my web xml    lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt front-controller lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt                  org springframework web servlet DispatcherServlet      lt  servlet-class gt       lt load-on-startup gt 1 lt  load-on-startup gt       lt  -- spring automatically discovers  WEB-INF  lt servlet-name gt -servlet xml -- gt   lt  servlet gt    lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt front-controller lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    Finally  since I m using current best practices  I have the following in my front controller servlet xml  see above     lt mvc annotation-driven  gt    And I have the following in my actual controller implementation  to ensure that I have a default method to handle all incoming requests    RequestMapping        I hope this helps

User · Answer

I got the same problem and found Joris s answer very helpful  But additionally I need to add    lt mvc annotation-driven   gt     to the servlet config file  Without that resource mapping will not work and all handlers will stop working  Hope this will help someone

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The URLRewrite is sort of a  hack  if you want to call it that   What it comes down to is  you re re-inventing the wheel  as there are already existing solutions   Another thing to remember is Http Server   Static content  amp  App server   dynamic content  this is how they were designed    By delegating the appropriate responsibilities to each server you maximize efficiency    but now-a-days this is probably only a concern in a performance critical environments and something like Tomcat would most likely work well in both roles most of the time  but it is still something to keep in mind none the less

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If I understand your issue correctly  I think I have found a solution to your problem   I had the same issue where raw output was shown with no css styles  javascripts or jquery files found   I just added mappings to the  default  servlet  The following was added to the web xml file     lt servlet-mapping gt     lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt     lt url-pattern gt   css lt  url-pattern gt    lt  servlet-mapping gt     lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   js lt  url-pattern gt    lt  servlet-mapping gt    This should filter out the javascript and css file requests from the DispatcherRequest object   Again  not sure if this is what you are after  but it worked for me  I think  default  is the name of the default servlet within JBoss  Not too sure what it is for other servers

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In Spring 3 0 x add the following to your servlet-config xml  the file that is configured in web xml as the contextConfigLocation  You need to add the mvc namespace as well but just google for that if you don t know how      That works for me   lt mvc default-servlet-handler  gt    Regards  Ayub Malik

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I ve just been grappling with this issue in Spring MVC 3 0 and I initially went with the UrlRewriteFilter option  However I was not happy with this solution as it  didn t feel right   I m not the only one - see the link above to the Spring Forums where the word  hack  appears a few times    So I came up with a similar solution to  Unknown  Google   above but borrowed the idea of having all static content served from  static   taken from the Spring Roo version of the Pet Store app   The  default  servlet did not work for me but the Spring Webflow ResourceServlet did  also taken from Spring Roo generated app    Web xml    lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt mainDispatcher lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt org springframework web servlet DispatcherServlet lt  servlet-class gt       lt load-on-startup gt 2 lt  load-on-startup gt   lt  servlet gt    lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt Resource Servlet lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt org springframework js resource ResourceServlet lt  servlet-class gt       lt load-on-startup gt 1 lt  load-on-startup gt   lt  servlet gt    lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt mainDispatcher lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt Resource Servlet lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  static   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    The only change I made to JSPs was to add the  static  path to URLs for CSS  JS and images  E g     pageContext request contextPath  static css screen css    for Maven users the dependency for  org springframework js resource ResourceServlet  is    lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org springframework webflow lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt org springframework js lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 2 0 8 RELEASE lt  version gt   lt  dependency gt

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This problem is solved in spring 3 0 4 RELEASE where you can use   lt mvc resources mapping       location        gt   configuration element in your spring dispatcher configuration file   Check Spring Documentation

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I found a way around it using tuckey s urlrewritefilter  Please feel free to give a better answer if you have one   In web xml    lt filter gt       lt filter-name gt UrlRewriteFilter lt  filter-name gt       lt filter-class gt org tuckey web filters urlrewrite UrlRewriteFilter lt  filter-class gt   lt  filter gt    lt filter-mapping gt       lt filter-name gt UrlRewriteFilter lt  filter-name gt       lt url-pattern gt    lt  url-pattern gt   lt  filter-mapping gt      lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt app lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt org springframework web servlet DispatcherServlet lt  servlet-class gt     lt  servlet gt      lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt app lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  app   lt  url-pattern gt     lt  servlet-mapping gt    In urlrewrite xml    lt urlrewrite default-match-type  wildcard  gt   lt rule gt       lt from gt   lt  from gt       lt to gt  app  lt  to gt   lt  rule gt   lt rule match-type  regex  gt       lt from gt            lt  from gt       lt to gt  app  1 lt  to gt   lt  rule gt   lt outbound-rule gt       lt from gt  app    lt  from gt       lt to gt   1 lt  to gt   lt  outbound-rule gt          This means that any uri with a     in it  like style css for example  won t be re-written

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This did the real job in my case  in web xml        lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  images   lt  url-pattern gt       lt url-pattern gt  css   lt  url-pattern gt       lt url-pattern gt  javascripts   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt     lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt spring-mvc-dispatcher lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt

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I know there are a few configurations to use the static contents  but my solution is that I just create a bulk web-application folder within your tomcat  This  bulk webapp  is only serving all the static-contents without serving apps  This is pain-free and easy solution for serving static contents to your actual spring webapp   For example  I m using two webapp folders on my tomcat    springapp  it is running only spring web application without static-contents like imgs  js  or css   dedicated for spring apps   resources  it is serving only the static contents without JSP  servlet  or any sort of java web application   dedicated for static-contents     If I want to use javascript  I simply add the URI for my javascript file   EX   resources path to js myjavascript js  For static images  I m using the same method   EX   resources path to img myimg jpg   Last  I put  security-constraint  on my tomcat to block the access to actual directory  I put  nobody  user-roll to the constraint so that the page generates  403 forbidden error  when people tried to access the static-contents path     So far it works very well for me  I also noticed that many popular websites like Amazon  Twitter  and Facebook they are using different URI for serving static-contents  To find out this  just right click on any static content and check their URI

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After encountering and going through the same decision making process described here  I decided to go with the ResourceServlet proposal which works out quite nicely   Note that you get more information on how to use webflow in your maven build process here  http   static springsource org spring-webflow docs 2 0 x reference html ch01s05 html  If you use the standard Maven central repository the artifact is  in opposite to the above referred springsource bundle     lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org springframework webflow lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt spring-js lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 2 0 9 RELEASE lt  version gt   lt  dependency gt

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lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  UTF-8   gt   lt beans xmlns  http   www springframework org schema beans      xmlns mvc  http   www springframework org schema mvc      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-3 0 xsd         http   www springframework org schema mvc         http   www springframework org schema mvc spring-mvc-3 0 xsd  gt   lt mvc default-servlet-handler  gt   lt  beans gt    and if you want to use annotation based configuration use below code   Override     public void configureDefaultServletHandling DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer            configurer enable

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I used both ways that is urlrewrite and annotation based in spring mvc 3 0 x and found that annotation based approach is most suitable that is    lt annotation-driven   gt    lt resources mapping   resources     location   resources     gt       In case of urlrewrite have to define lots of rule and some time also get class not found exception for UrlRewriteFilter as already provided the dependency for it    I found that it s happening due to the presence of transitive dependency  so again one step will increased and have to exclude that dependency from pom xml using     lt exclusion gt  lt  exclusion gt  tags    So annotation based approach will be the good deal

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This can be achieved in at least three ways   Solutions    expose the html as a resource file instruct the JspServlet to also handle   html requests write your own servlet  or pass to another existing servlet requests to   html     For complete code examples how to achieve this please reffer to my answer in another post  How to map requests to HTML file in Spring MVC

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Since I spent a lot of time on this issue  I thought I d share my solution  Since spring 3 0 4  there is a configuration parameter that is called  lt mvc resources  gt   more about that on the reference documentation website  which can be used to serve static resources while still using the DispatchServlet on your site s root   In order to use this  use a directory structure that looks like the following   src   springmvc    web     MyController java WebContent    resources     img      image jpg   WEB-INF      jsp        index jsp     web xml     springmvc-servlet xml   The contents of the files should look like   src springmvc web HelloWorldController java   package springmvc web   import org springframework stereotype Controller  import org springframework web bind annotation RequestMapping    Controller public class HelloWorldController      RequestMapping value       public String index       return  index          WebContent WEB-INF web xml    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  UTF-8   gt   lt web-app version  2 4  xmlns  http   java sun com xml ns j2ee   xmlns xsi  http   www w3 org 2001 XMLSchema-instance   xsi schemaLocation  http   java sun com xml ns j2ee           http   java sun com xml ns j2ee web-app 2 4 xsd  gt     lt servlet gt     lt servlet-name gt springmvc lt  servlet-name gt     lt servlet-class gt org springframework web servlet DispatcherServlet lt  servlet-class gt     lt load-on-startup gt 1 lt  load-on-startup gt    lt  servlet gt     lt servlet-mapping gt     lt servlet-name gt springmvc lt  servlet-name gt     lt url-pattern gt   lt  url-pattern gt    lt  servlet-mapping gt   lt  web-app gt    WebContent WEB-INF springmvc-servlet xml    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  UTF-8   gt   lt beans xmlns  http   www springframework org schema beans   xmlns xsi  http   www w3 org 2001 XMLSchema-instance  xmlns context  http   www springframework org schema context   xmlns mvc  http   www springframework org schema mvc   xsi schemaLocation  http   www springframework org schema beans  http   www springframework org schema beans spring-beans-2 5 xsd  http   www springframework org schema mvc  http   www springframework org schema mvc spring-mvc-3 0 xsd  http   www springframework org schema context  http   www springframework org schema context spring-context-3 0 xsd  gt        lt  -- not strictly necessary for this example  but still useful  see http   static springsource org spring docs 3 0 x spring-framework-reference html mvc html mvc-ann-controller for more information -- gt    lt context component-scan base-package  springmvc web    gt        lt  -- the mvc resources tag does the magic -- gt    lt mvc resources mapping   resources     location   resources     gt        lt  -- also add the following beans to get rid of some exceptions -- gt    lt bean      class  org springframework web servlet mvc annotation AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter    gt    lt bean class  org springframework web servlet mvc annotation DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping  gt    lt  bean gt        lt  -- JSTL resolver -- gt    lt bean id  viewResolver    class  org springframework web servlet view InternalResourceViewResolver  gt     lt property name  viewClass     value  org springframework web servlet view JstlView    gt     lt property name  prefix  value   WEB-INF jsp     gt     lt property name  suffix  value   jsp    gt    lt  bean gt    lt  beans gt    WebContent jsp index jsp    lt    taglib prefix  c  uri  http   java sun com jsp jstl core    gt   lt h1 gt Page with image lt  h1 gt   lt  -- use c url to get the correct absolute path -- gt   lt img src   lt c url value   resources img image jpg    gt     gt    Hope this helps  -

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I just add three rules before spring default rule       to tuckey s urlrewritefilter  urlrewrite xml  to solve the problem   lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt  DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC  -  tuckey org  DTD UrlRewrite 3 0  EN   http   tuckey org res dtds urlrewrite3 0 dtd  gt       lt urlrewrite default-match-type  wildcard  gt        lt rule gt         lt from gt   lt  from gt         lt to gt  app welcome lt  to gt        lt  rule gt        lt rule gt         lt from gt  scripts    lt  from gt         lt to gt  scripts  1 lt  to gt        lt  rule gt        lt rule gt         lt from gt  styles    lt  from gt         lt to gt  styles  1 lt  to gt        lt  rule gt        lt rule gt         lt from gt  images    lt  from gt         lt to gt  images  1 lt  to gt        lt  rule gt        lt rule gt         lt from gt     lt  from gt         lt to gt  app  1 lt  to gt        lt  rule gt        lt outbound-rule gt         lt from gt  app    lt  from gt         lt to gt   1 lt  to gt        lt  outbound-rule gt        lt  urlrewrite gt

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I solved it this way    lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   jpg lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   png lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   gif lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   js lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt default lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt   css lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    This works on Tomcat and ofcourse Jboss  However in the end I decided to use the solution Spring provides  as mentioned by rozky  which is far more portable

[spring-mvc] How to handle static content in Spring MVC?

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