Help: Unable to set root servlet in a shared hosting environment

Question

I'm using a shared hosting environment with GoDaddy and can't set the http://www.domain.com/ root servlet, i.e. the servlet that gets invoked when we go to the homepage.
I have the following web.xml file configured that currently works on my testing server:
     <servlet>
          <display-name>MainPage</display-name>
          <servlet-name>MainPage</servlet-name>
          <servlet-class>com.somedomain.MainPage</servlet-class>
     </servlet>
     <servlet-mapping>
          <servlet-name>MainPage</servlet-name>
          <url-pattern>/mainpage</url-pattern>
     </servlet-mapping>
     <welcome-file-list>
          <welcome-file>mainpage</welcome-file>
     </welcome-file-list>The application is configured as the 'ROOT' application on my development server, but shared in the hosting environment. I wonder if some permissions are not given since it is shared hosting environment. The error message I get when visiting the page is:
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at dev9.somedomain.com Port 80Unfortunately the server get's restarted once a day, so multiple suggestions would be much appreciated. I will upload them all at once.

Answer 1

Change the value of the url-pattern value of your servlet mapping in the deployment descriptor. Instead of using "/mainpage" as the value use "/index.html" or "/index.jsp".
Edited To Add - But this might not be right, because it will result in an endless loop. You would eventually want to display the home page and it would trigger the servlet which would forward to the home page, triggering the servlet and on and on...
I don't think I know the answer here...
Edited by: nantucket on Apr 5, 2009 12:20 PM