Cannot acess file on server from client machine using java web start

Question

Hi everyone,
I am creating an appication using JWS and Apache Web Server version 2.0.54 on Linux. I am trying to access a file on the server that IS NOT inside the jar file. I have given full access (r, w, x) to all users on my server. We also created a FilePermission object and gave the file read and write access as well. But when we deploy the program and try to get this file, a SecurityException is thrown with the following mesage:
acess denied (java.io.FilePermission filename read) where filename is the file in our local filesystem. Any suggestions on what I can do?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Raj

Answer 1

It sounds like you are trying to access the file as if your JNLP application were running on the server. The JNLP app is running on the client machine, so you will need to use a URL to open the file. Take a look at the JavaDocs for the following:
     java.net.URL
     java.net.URI
     java.net.File
You also need to be sure your server is configured to serve the file. For example, you ought to be able to access the file through your browser using something like http://www.myco.com/myapp/myfile.txt. (How you configure your server is a topic for a different forum.)
You probably also want to look into JavaWS security, and even Java security in general to determine if you need to sign your app or not. Here are some links to get you started:
        http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/javaws/developersguide/development.html#security
        http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/deployment/deployment-guide/security.html
        http://java.sun.com/sfaq/
        http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/security/permissions.html
        http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/security/index.html
Mike.