How can I list all the files in folder on tomcat?

Question

I have got a folder with many excel documents in it on tomcat and i want those files to be available when i got go the that folder's url in the browser (eg http;//localhost:8080/myfolder)

at the moment when i try to access a folder i get a 404 error. by if i try to access a file that is in that folder, it works.

post up the code you are using. Also, make sure you don't take user input here or you may reveal /etc/shadow — Woot4Moo, Aug 15 '11 at 17:03
@Woot4Moo there is no code. it's just a folder with some files in it. i want to be able to navigate to that folder's url and have it display all the files in it just like apache server does. — 124697, Aug 15 '11 at 17:05
@user if there is no code then why did you mark it as java and jsp? — Woot4Moo, Aug 15 '11 at 17:07
Modified the tags as I think those are slightly more useful than the java and jsp tags you had — Woot4Moo, Aug 15 '11 at 17:09
@nos I've editted the original post to include the web-inf file — 124697, Aug 15 '11 at 17:17
Don't pay attention to comment of nos. It's not related to the problem. — BalusC, Aug 15 '11 at 17:21

score 55 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 15 '11 at 17:12

55

The DefaultServlet of Tomcat is by default configured to not show directory listings. You need to open Tomcat's own /conf/web.xml file (look in Tomcat installation folder), search the <servlet> entry of the DefaultServlet and then change its listings initialization parameter from

<init-param>
    <param-name>listings</param-name>
    <param-value>false</param-value>
</init-param>

to

<init-param>
    <param-name>listings</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</init-param>

Keep in mind that this affects all folders of your webapp. If you want to enable this for only an individual folder, you've got to write some Servlet code yourself which does the job with help of the java.io.File API in servlet side to collect the files and some bunch of HTML/CSS in JSP side to present it in a neat fashion.

answered Aug 15 '11 at 17:12

BalusC

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I have added the web-inf file to the original post. can you tell me where abouts those paramaters should go. thanks – 124697 Aug 15 '11 at 17:16
@Solver: the other answer is not portable (i.e. webapp will crash when deployed to a server of a different make and possibly even different version). You see, it's not part of standard Servlet API. – BalusC Mar 02 '16 at 07:58
1

This can be done on a per-webapp basis. You just have to modify the application's `WEB-INF/web.xml` instead of Tomcat's site-wide `conf/web.xml`. You will need to copy the whole `DefaultServlet` declaration, setup, and mapping into your own `WEB-INF/web.xml` but once you do that, you can enable directory-listings for a single web application instead of all web applications deployed on that Tomcat instance. – Christopher Schultz Sep 30 '16 at 13:50
@Christopher: it's not portable, see previous comment. – BalusC Sep 30 '16 at 13:58
@BalusC Sure it's not portable, but neither are directory listings themselves. The servlet spec does not guarantee that requests for directories with no `welcome-file` present will instead show a directory listing. So discussing directory-listings provided by the container are already out of spec, and thus not portable. – Christopher Schultz Oct 01 '16 at 00:20
@Christopher: The main concern is that the webapp will crash when deployed to other server, not that directory listings are not configurable via Servlet API. Just configure them in the individual server itself. This way you don't need to change and rebuild the webapp for every different server the world is aware of. – BalusC Oct 01 '16 at 08:24
A little late but, this is a very bad idea. We should be reading the files using Java IO and then sending the content over API, possibly paginated. – zookastos Feb 25 '20 at 17:48

score 19 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 02 '13 at 13:08

19

You can also enable it starting from a given url pattern. Just add the servlet and servlet-mapping to you app web.xml

<servlet>
    <!-- List files in /ws-definitions -->
    <servlet-name>ListWsDefinitions</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>debug</param-name>
        <param-value>0</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>listings</param-name>
        <param-value>true</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>100</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>ListWsDefinitions</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/ws-definitions/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

In this example directories below "/ws-definitions/" will be listen.

edited Jul 02 '13 at 13:08

andrewsi

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answered Jul 02 '13 at 12:52

swisswheel

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I tried this to access the files list using tomcat and it worked well. Thank you! – Ricardo Sep 05 '14 at 19:54
Nope, such a webapp would crash when deployed to a different server make/version. In other words, such a webapp is not portable. Rather configure it in server end instead of webapp end. Or, homegrow your own reusable directory listings servlet. – BalusC Oct 01 '16 at 08:28

adarshr · Answer 3 · 2011-08-15T17:14:51.947

Here's some documentation explaining how to do this.

http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/default-servlet.html

The basic idea is to change the value of listings parameter to true in the main web.xml of tomcat.

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>
      org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet
    </servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>debug</param-name>
        <param-value>0</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>listings</param-name>
        <param-value>false</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

But the above will expose all directories. In order to have fine control, follow the steps explained here:

http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/default-servlet.html#dir

I did not downvote, but your initial answer only told how to customize the default directory listing layout, not how to enable it. — BalusC, Aug 15 '11 at 17:13

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 02 '13 at 02:43

If you are using Tomcat 6 (which implements Servlet 2.5 specification) or a newer version, you don't have to change the web.xml in the CATALINA_HOME/conf/ directory to display the directory listings. Instead you should change the web application's own web.xml file under WEB-INF.

As Adarshr mentioned, this is what you need to add to the web.xml

<servlet>
  <servlet—name>default</servlet—name>
  <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>debug</param-name>
    <param-value>0</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>listings</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
 </init-param>
 <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

You also need to add the following

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

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 29 '13 at 08:45

If changing the listings param value doesn't work, try editing the welcome file list

default values were the following:

<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

edit it as follows:

<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file></welcome-file>
    <welcome-file></welcome-file>
    <welcome-file></welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

on removing them it should work perfectly

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 15 '11 at 17:13

2

Here's a simple servlet that might be a start for a completely custom approach.

answered Aug 15 '11 at 17:13

trashgod

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score 0 · Answer 7 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

0

If you are just trying to implement a web-based file browser for files outside of your servlet, you could use the custom webapp mentioned in this answer.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Community

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answered Feb 09 '14 at 03:32

kostmo

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How can I list all the files in folder on tomcat?

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