Appletviewer/j2sdk1.4.2/permissions/housespider

Question

I am trying to index a website using the HouseSpider applet. My platform is Windows 2000. I have created the recommended policy file in my home directory - Documents and Settings/Administrator - (and I've tried it in a couple of otherplaces, too).
There are no aliases in my keystore file.
The policy file's content is:
/* AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED ON Tue Nov 18 17:05:43 EST 2003*/
/* DO NOT EDIT */
keystore "file:/c:/java2/mykeystore", "JKS";
grant codeBase "file:/c:/Family/-" {
permission java.net.SocketPermission "*", "accept, connect, listen, resolve";
permission java.io.FilePermission "*", "read, write, delete, execute";
I have copied all the files from the
C:\Program Files\J2SDK_nb\J2SDK1.4.2\bin
directory to another directory, c:\Java2, to make typing in the command line in the DOS window easier.
The HouseSpider applet is in a file called indexit.html in my web on my hard-drive. HouseSpider index is an empty file in the website's 'root' directory. I deleted all the contents from a previous indexing and removed the record of that operation from the HouseSpider.log file.
When I use the command
appletviewer file:\\\c:\Family\indexit.html
in the DOS window the Applet window opens normally and the messages in the status bar are unexceptional. When I enter houseindex into the search window and then go back to the DOS window I find the message
"This is HouseSpider v4.4
Security Exception. Could not write to HouseSpider.index. Set your browser's java security options to allow local applets to access the file system."
Possibly there is a problem with the appletviewer properties file but I cannot find it. Instructions say it's to be found in the .hotjava directory but that's not available. I tried creating one with the appropriate acl.read and acl.write lines but I'm shooting in the dark because I don't know where to put it or ????
There's a bug somewhere in what I'm doing and I'll continue to hack away at it but anyone who can offer some advice I'd certainly appreciate it.

Answer 1

I have solved the problem.
Documentation indicates that the policy file (.java.policy) should reside in my home directory. However, when the java package is downloaded and installed it creates a default policy file - java.policy (note no leading dot) in the
Program Files\j2sdk_nb\j2sdk1.4.2\jre\lib\security
folder. All I had to do was to use the Policytool to add the needed io.FilePermission line temporarily to this file and then Appletviewer indexed my website very quickly and wrote a new housespider.index file. I didn't have to add the other line recommended in the HouseSpider installation documentation because I indexed the site on my hard drive.
If I can help anyone else having problems with HouseSpider indexing please contact me at [email protected]