How to config Tomcat to serve images from an external folder outside webapps

Question

How can i use Tomcat to serve image files from a public folder outside webapps  I dont want to use a 2nd Apache fileserver on a different port since the image files are part of the same app  And i dont want to create a symlink to the public folder inside webapps since my app is deployed as a war file    Is there a simpler solution similar to using default servlet for static content inside webapps  for static content outside outside webapps

User · Answer

Many years later  we can do the following with Spring Web MVC  inside our webapp-servlet xml file    lt mvc resources mapping   static     location   static     gt

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This is very simple and straight forward to server the static content from outside webapps folder in tomcat   Simply edit the server xml under  CATALINA HOME config server xml as below and restart the tomcat    lt Host name  localhost   appBase  webapps              unpackWARs  true  autoDeploy  true  gt              lt Context docBase  C  Ankur testFiles   path   companyLogo    gt             lt Valve className  org apache catalina valves AccessLogValve  directory  logs                 prefix  localhost access log  suffix   txt                 pattern   h  l  u  t  amp quot  r amp quot   s  b    gt    lt  Host gt    Add the context element inside the host element with two attribute docBase and path    1  docBase  represents the hard drive directory 2  path  represents the uri on which you want to serve the static content   For example If you have 7 png inside the C  Ankur testFiles directory then you can access the 7 png file like below   http   localhost 8081 companyLogo 7 png  For more details  check the blog

User · Answer

You could have a redirect servlet  In you web xml you d have    lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt com example images ImageServlet lt  servlet-class gt   lt  servlet gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  images   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    All your images would be in   images   which would be intercepted by the servlet  It would then read in the relevant file in whatever folder and serve it right back out  For example  say you have a gif in your images folder  c  Server Images smilie gif  In the web page would be  lt img src  http  example com app images smilie gif      In the servlet   HttpServletRequest getPathInfo   would yield   smilie gif   Which the servlet would find in the folder

User · Answer

You could have a redirect servlet  In you web xml you d have    lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt com example images ImageServlet lt  servlet-class gt   lt  servlet gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  images   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    All your images would be in   images   which would be intercepted by the servlet  It would then read in the relevant file in whatever folder and serve it right back out  For example  say you have a gif in your images folder  c  Server Images smilie gif  In the web page would be  lt img src  http  example com app images smilie gif      In the servlet   HttpServletRequest getPathInfo   would yield   smilie gif   Which the servlet would find in the folder

User · Answer

You can deploy an images folder as a separate webapp and define the location of that folder to be anywhere in the file system   Create a Context element in an XML file in the directory  CATALINA HOME conf  enginename   hostname   where enginename might be  Catalina  and hostname might be  localhost    Name the file based on the path URL you want the images to be viewed from  so if your webapp has path  blog   you might name the XML file blog images xml and so that your images would be visible at example com blog images   The content of the XML file should be  lt Context docBase   filesystem path to images   gt   Be careful not to undeploy this webapp  as that could delete all your images

User · Answer

Instead of configuring Tomcat to redirect requests  use Apache as a frontend with the Apache Tomcat connector so that Apache is only serving static content  while asking tomcat for dynamic content   Using the JKmount directive  or others  you could specify exactly which requests are sent to Tomcat   Requests for static content  such as images  would be served directly by Apache  using a standard virtual host configuration  while other requests  defined in the JKMount directive will be sent to Tomcat workers   I think this implementation would give you the most flexibility and control on the overall application

User · Answer

You can deploy an images folder as a separate webapp and define the location of that folder to be anywhere in the file system   Create a Context element in an XML file in the directory  CATALINA HOME conf  enginename   hostname   where enginename might be  Catalina  and hostname might be  localhost    Name the file based on the path URL you want the images to be viewed from  so if your webapp has path  blog   you might name the XML file blog images xml and so that your images would be visible at example com blog images   The content of the XML file should be  lt Context docBase   filesystem path to images   gt   Be careful not to undeploy this webapp  as that could delete all your images

User · Answer

Instead of configuring Tomcat to redirect requests  use Apache as a frontend with the Apache Tomcat connector so that Apache is only serving static content  while asking tomcat for dynamic content   Using the JKmount directive  or others  you could specify exactly which requests are sent to Tomcat   Requests for static content  such as images  would be served directly by Apache  using a standard virtual host configuration  while other requests  defined in the JKMount directive will be sent to Tomcat workers   I think this implementation would give you the most flexibility and control on the overall application

User · Answer

After none of solutions based on defining XMLs worked for me  I found this answer very helpful  Took about a minute  and a small code change  I modified this line  this basePath   getServletContext   getRealPath getInitParameter  basePath      into  this basePath   getInitParameter  basePath

User · Answer

You could have a redirect servlet  In you web xml you d have    lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt com example images ImageServlet lt  servlet-class gt   lt  servlet gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  images   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    All your images would be in   images   which would be intercepted by the servlet  It would then read in the relevant file in whatever folder and serve it right back out  For example  say you have a gif in your images folder  c  Server Images smilie gif  In the web page would be  lt img src  http  example com app images smilie gif      In the servlet   HttpServletRequest getPathInfo   would yield   smilie gif   Which the servlet would find in the folder

User · Answer

Many years later  we can do the following with Spring Web MVC  inside our webapp-servlet xml file    lt mvc resources mapping   static     location   static     gt

User · Answer

Instead of configuring Tomcat to redirect requests  use Apache as a frontend with the Apache Tomcat connector so that Apache is only serving static content  while asking tomcat for dynamic content   Using the JKmount directive  or others  you could specify exactly which requests are sent to Tomcat   Requests for static content  such as images  would be served directly by Apache  using a standard virtual host configuration  while other requests  defined in the JKMount directive will be sent to Tomcat workers   I think this implementation would give you the most flexibility and control on the overall application

User · Answer

This is the way I did it and it worked fine for me   done on Tomcat 7 x   Add a  lt context gt  to the tomcat conf server xml file   Windows example    lt Context docBase  c  Documents and Settings The User images  path   project images    gt    Linux example    lt Context docBase   var project images  path   project images    gt    Like this  in context     lt Server port  8025  shutdown  SHUTDOWN  gt          lt Service name  Catalina  gt               lt Engine defaultHost  localhost  name  Catalina  gt                 lt Host appBase  webapps        autoDeploy  false  name  localhost  unpackWARs  true        xmlNamespaceAware  false  xmlValidation  false  gt                   lt  --MAGIC LINE GOES HERE-- gt          lt Context  docBase   var project images  path   project images    gt          lt  Host gt       lt  Engine gt     lt  Service gt   lt  Server gt    In this way  you should be able to find the files  e g   var project images NameOfImage jpg  under   http   localhost 8080 project images NameOfImage jpg

User · Answer

This is very simple and straight forward to server the static content from outside webapps folder in tomcat   Simply edit the server xml under  CATALINA HOME config server xml as below and restart the tomcat    lt Host name  localhost   appBase  webapps              unpackWARs  true  autoDeploy  true  gt              lt Context docBase  C  Ankur testFiles   path   companyLogo    gt             lt Valve className  org apache catalina valves AccessLogValve  directory  logs                 prefix  localhost access log  suffix   txt                 pattern   h  l  u  t  amp quot  r amp quot   s  b    gt    lt  Host gt    Add the context element inside the host element with two attribute docBase and path    1  docBase  represents the hard drive directory 2  path  represents the uri on which you want to serve the static content   For example If you have 7 png inside the C  Ankur testFiles directory then you can access the 7 png file like below   http   localhost 8081 companyLogo 7 png  For more details  check the blog

User · Answer

You could have a redirect servlet  In you web xml you d have    lt servlet gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt servlet-class gt com example images ImageServlet lt  servlet-class gt   lt  servlet gt   lt servlet-mapping gt       lt servlet-name gt images lt  servlet-name gt       lt url-pattern gt  images   lt  url-pattern gt   lt  servlet-mapping gt    All your images would be in   images   which would be intercepted by the servlet  It would then read in the relevant file in whatever folder and serve it right back out  For example  say you have a gif in your images folder  c  Server Images smilie gif  In the web page would be  lt img src  http  example com app images smilie gif      In the servlet   HttpServletRequest getPathInfo   would yield   smilie gif   Which the servlet would find in the folder

User · Answer

Instead of configuring Tomcat to redirect requests  use Apache as a frontend with the Apache Tomcat connector so that Apache is only serving static content  while asking tomcat for dynamic content   Using the JKmount directive  or others  you could specify exactly which requests are sent to Tomcat   Requests for static content  such as images  would be served directly by Apache  using a standard virtual host configuration  while other requests  defined in the JKMount directive will be sent to Tomcat workers   I think this implementation would give you the most flexibility and control on the overall application

User · Answer

In Tomcat 7  you can use  aliases  property  From the docs    This attribute provides a list of external locations from which to load resources for this context  The list of aliases should be of the form   aliasPath1 docBase1  aliasPath2 docBase2  where aliasPathN must include a leading     and docBaseN must be an absolute path to either a  war file or a directory  A resource will be searched for in the first docBaseN for which aliasPathN is a leading path segment of the resource  If there is no such alias  then the resource will be searched in the usual way  These external locations will not be emptied if the context is un-deployed

User · Answer

After none of solutions based on defining XMLs worked for me  I found this answer very helpful  Took about a minute  and a small code change  I modified this line  this basePath   getServletContext   getRealPath getInitParameter  basePath      into  this basePath   getInitParameter  basePath

User · Answer

This is the way I did it and it worked fine for me   done on Tomcat 7 x   Add a  lt context gt  to the tomcat conf server xml file   Windows example    lt Context docBase  c  Documents and Settings The User images  path   project images    gt    Linux example    lt Context docBase   var project images  path   project images    gt    Like this  in context     lt Server port  8025  shutdown  SHUTDOWN  gt          lt Service name  Catalina  gt               lt Engine defaultHost  localhost  name  Catalina  gt                 lt Host appBase  webapps        autoDeploy  false  name  localhost  unpackWARs  true        xmlNamespaceAware  false  xmlValidation  false  gt                   lt  --MAGIC LINE GOES HERE-- gt          lt Context  docBase   var project images  path   project images    gt          lt  Host gt       lt  Engine gt     lt  Service gt   lt  Server gt    In this way  you should be able to find the files  e g   var project images NameOfImage jpg  under   http   localhost 8080 project images NameOfImage jpg

User · Answer

In Tomcat 7  you can use  aliases  property  From the docs    This attribute provides a list of external locations from which to load resources for this context  The list of aliases should be of the form   aliasPath1 docBase1  aliasPath2 docBase2  where aliasPathN must include a leading     and docBaseN must be an absolute path to either a  war file or a directory  A resource will be searched for in the first docBaseN for which aliasPathN is a leading path segment of the resource  If there is no such alias  then the resource will be searched in the usual way  These external locations will not be emptied if the context is un-deployed

[tomcat] How to config Tomcat to serve images from an external folder outside webapps?

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