File system inaccessible to application running under Tomcat

[Stephen Gray <Stephen.Gray (at) anu.edu.au>]

Hello everyone,

I'm having a problem with a java/jsp application running under Tomcat 
5.5.12 on Windows. When I start Tomcat from the system tray application or 
from the windows services window code that checks whether a directory 
exists incorrectly returns false:

        File file = new File(server.dataDirectory);
        if (! file.exists())
            throw new FileNotFoundException("Data directory " + 
server.dataDirectory + " for server " + server.shortName + " does not exist.");

If I comment this out the next piece of code (which gets a list of files in 
the directory) returns no files.

However if I start Tomcat from within either Eclipse (MyEclipse) or 
Netbeans this does not happen - file.exists() returns true and a complete 
list of files is returned.

I'm assuming that there is come configuration option that causes Tomcat not 
to be able to see the local file system but I can't think what it might be 
- I'm not starting Tomcat with a security manager.

Can anyone help?

Thanks very much,
Steve


Stephen Gray
Archive Research Officer
Australian Social Science Data Archive
18 Balmain Crescent (Building #66)
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

Phone +61 2 6125 2185
Fax +61 2 6125 0627
Web http://assda.anu.edu.au/