More Servlets and JavaServer Pages™

5.4. Disabling the Invoker Servlet

One reason for setting up a custom URL for a servlet or JSP page is so that you can register initialization parameters to be read from the init (servlets) or jspInit (JSP pages) methods. However, as discussed in Section 5.5 (Initializing and Preloading Servlets and JSP Pages), the initialization parameters are available only when the servlet or JSP page is accessed by means of a custom URL pattern or a registered name, not when it is accessed with the default URL of http://host/webAppPrefix/servlet/ServletName. Consequently, you might want to turn off the default URL so that nobody accidentally calls the uninitialized servlet. This process is sometimes known as disabling the invoker servlet, since most servers ...