java - Servlet for serving static content

Question

I deploy a webapp on two different containers (Tomcat and Jetty), but their default servlets for serving the static content have a different way of handling the URL structure I want to use (details).

I am therefore looking to include a small servlet in the webapp to serve its own static content (images, CSS, etc.). The servlet should have the following properties:

• No external dependencies
• Simple and reliable
• Support for If-Modified-Since header (i.e. custom getLastModified method)
• (Optional) support for gzip encoding, etags,...

Is such a servlet available somewhere? The closest I can find is example 4-10 from the servlet book.

Update: The URL structure I want to use - in case you are wondering - is simply:

    <servlet-mapping>
            <servlet-name>main</servlet-name>
            <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-mapping>
            <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
            <url-pattern>/static/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

So all requests should be passed to the main servlet, unless they are for the static path. The problem is that Tomcat's default servlet does not take the ServletPath into account (so it looks for the static files in the main folder), while Jetty does (so it looks in the static folder).

Answer 1

I came up with a slightly different solution. It's a bit hack-ish, but here is the mapping:

<servlet-mapping>   
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.html</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.jpg</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet-mapping>
 <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.png</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.css</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.js</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>myAppServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

This basically just maps all content files by extension to the default servlet, and everything else to "myAppServlet".

It works in both Jetty and Tomcat.