HELP: jsp cookie problem

Question

Hi,
1) I have a page (index.jsp) that looks for a cookie, if the cookie isn't there it redirects to a login page.
2) The login page, on submit, calls a servlet that sets the cookie (when usr and pwd are valid). Then the servlet redirects to the original page (index.jsp).
3)The problem is, when redirected to the index.jsp, index.jsp cannot see the cookie -- so it redirects to login.jsp again. But if I refresh index.jsp it sees the cookie and works fine.
So it looks like the cookie isn't totally set between the addCookie in the servlet and the load of the index.jsp. Is there so kind of "commit" or something I'm supposed to do after the "addCookie" to make it take correctly?
Here are some code snippets -- any help is greatly appreciated!
# the servlet
response.addCookie(new Cookie("loggedin-username", sUsername));
RequestDispatcher dispatcher = getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/index.jsp");
dispatcher.forward(request, response);
# the index.jsp
<%
     Cookie[] cookies = request.getCookies();
     boolean bLoggedIn = false;
     int i=0;
     while ( (cookies != null) && !bLoggedIn && (i<cookies.length) ) {
          if (cookies.getName().equals("loggedin-username")) {
               Cookie c = cookies[i];
               bLoggedIn = (c.getValue() != null);
          i++;
     if (!bLoggedIn) {
          response.sendRedirect("login.jsp");
%>
You are logged in.
<p>

Answer 1

2) The login page, on submit, calls a servlet that sets the cookie (when usr and pwd are valid). Then the servlet redirects to the original page (index.jsp).No the Servlet does a RequestDispatcher.forward to the index.jsp. A forward is a server side action that does not go to the browser and the target Servlet/JSP gets the original request and response objects.
So in the Servlet you set the cookie.
response.addCookie(new Cookie("loggedin-username", sUsername));Notice that you set it in the response object.
Then the forward
dispatcher.forward(request, response);And then the JSP looks for the cookie.
Cookie[] cookies = request.getCookies();Notice it looks in the request for the cookies but since the response has not gone to the browser the browser has not had the opportunity to add the cookie into the request.
Then the forward