Default Welcome File: redirect or proxy to it?

[James Bromberger <Ja...@jdv.com>]

Hello all,

A quick question on the welcome-file, or as Apache knows it, DirectoryIndex.

I have Tomcat running stand alone behind some Apache servers. Hence, there is no question of using the Apache directive "DirectoryIndex" for this. I am looking at web.xml and seeing the default configuration for welcome file:

    <welcome-file-list>
        <welcome-file>
            index.jsp
        </welcome-file>
        <welcome-file>
            index.html
        </welcome-file>
        <welcome-file>
            index.htm
        </welcome-file>
    </welcome-file-list>


What am noticing is a redirect to the welcome file, in place where Apache would normally do what is almost a proxy to it. The redirect appears to be an absolute redirect to the correct welcome-file, and not a relative one. Is this correct? Should it be an redirect or a 'proxy' (ie, access the default document and return that for the request for '/' so the URL does not change for the client)? Should the redirect be a relative URL (is that permitted in the HTTP spec?)

Here is the response I got when I telnet'ed to Tomcat's HTTP listener (yes, I have it on port 8100):

GET / HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.0 302 Found
Content-Type: text/html
Location: http://hound:8100/index.jsp 


Now, Remy Maucherat seems to have confirmed this in http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=tomcat-user&m=98531223608091&w=2. 

Having looked quickly at the HTTP spec, I can't see it saying that it must be an absolute URL in the Location: header. Anyone care to comment?

  James

-- 
  James Bromberger,
  Senior Web/Systems Administrator, JDV
  +61 8 9268 2909, +61 417 322 500
  Fax: +61 8 9268 0200

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Re: Default Welcome File: redirect or proxy to it?

["Craig R. McClanahan" <cr...@apache.org>]

See below.

On Fri, 12 Oct 2001, James Bromberger wrote:

> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 14:12:36 +0800
> From: James Bromberger <Ja...@jdv.com>
> Reply-To: tomcat-user@jakarta.apache.org
> To: tomcat-user@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: Default Welcome File: redirect or proxy to it?
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> A quick question on the welcome-file, or as Apache knows it, DirectoryIndex.
>
> I have Tomcat running stand alone behind some Apache servers. Hence, there is no question of using the Apache directive "DirectoryIndex" for this. I am looking at web.xml and seeing the default configuration for welcome file:
>
>     <welcome-file-list>
>         <welcome-file>
>             index.jsp
>         </welcome-file>
>         <welcome-file>
>             index.html
>         </welcome-file>
>         <welcome-file>
>             index.htm
>         </welcome-file>
>     </welcome-file-list>
>
>
> What am noticing is a redirect to the welcome file, in place where
> Apache would normally do what is almost a proxy to it. The redirect
> appears to be an absolute redirect to the correct welcome-file, and
> not a relative one. Is this correct? Should it be an redirect or a
> 'proxy' (ie, access the default document and return that for the
> request for '/' so the URL does not change for the client)? Should the
> redirect be a relative URL (is that permitted in the HTTP spec?)
>

See HTTP/1.1 Specification (RFC 2616), Section 14.30.  The syntax of the
Location header is:

  Location   = "Location" ":" absoluteURI

In reality, the browser *always* converts relative URIs to absolute ones
when it submits them.  For example, if you have a page at "/foo/bar.html"
that contains this:

  <img src="baz.gif">

then the resulting request from the browser will say

  GET /foo/baz.gif HTTP/1.0

Craig McClanahan