web.xml welcome file from WEB-INF folder

Question

I get the resquested resource is not available error while trying to load a welcome file from the WEB-INF folder, in my web.xml it looks like this:

<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>WEB-INF/html/index.html</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

In other words, the html files are located in the WEB-INF directory in the folder named "html"...

So how do I do this correctly? It's so complex all this paths thing, I mean is there some kind of paths guide or anything? Because I just can't develop because I get stuck at these things when something can't be found because the path i write is interpreted differently than I expect it to...

Answer 1

Files in the WEB-INF directory are not directly available for access.

See URL:

Place private files in the WEB-INF directory, under the root directory. All files under WEB-INF are private, and are not served to a client.