Start Servlet with request at startup

Question

I must work with a Servlet application which only start up at the first HTTP request (its init() method does nothing). I mustn't change its code
Is there any method in Tomcat to initalize this servlet when the Servlet Container starts up?
Or is there any method to determine (not from a property file) the port where this context runs in another Servlet's init() method (to generate a request via URLConnection...)
I tried a
RequestDispatcher disp = getServletConfig().getRequestDispatcher('/path/ThatServlet');
disp.forward(?, ?);but I can't find a properly implemented HttpServlet* class to give a request and response objects to the forward() method.

Answer 1

I must work with a Servlet application which only
start up at the first HTTP request (its init() method
does nothing). I mustn't change its code
Is there any method in Tomcat to initalize this
servlet when the Servlet Container starts up?
Use the <load-on-startup> tag and give a positive value to it in your servlet defintiion in web.xml
<servlet>
        <servlet-name>servlet_name</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class> pkg.servlet_class </servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>cheers,
ram.