Downloading files from remote server Java

Question

I am looking for suggestions on implementing this requirement:

The requirement is for users on a public website to be able to download files of any kind. The webserver for the website resides on a DMZ, the server that stores the files is internal to our corporate network. The webserver would have to communicate with the file storage server to get the files. What would be the best way to implement this?

Answer 1

Map that file server as a network drive in the disk file system of the web server and then add another web application context to the servletcontainer configuration which references the network mapped path.

It's unclear what servletcontainer and platform you're running/targeting, so I can't give a more detailed answer. But if it were Tomcat, then it's a matter of adding the following <Context> element to Tomcat's /conf/server.xml , assuming that you've mapped the file server on /path/to/mount/share :

<Context path="/share" docBase="/path/to/mount/share" />

This way it's available by http://localhost:8080/share/

Answer 2

It looks like that you want a proxy-like component to serve backend files... Personally I wouldn't use an application server for such a task, instead use simply a webserver. Some options:

• Network share: Create a network share just as BalusC proposed and configure your web server to use that share.
• Reverse proxy: Deploy another web server on your file server and configure your front end to act as a reverse proxy (ie. to dispatch download requests to the internal web server)

That is to say I would rather use an (Apache, Nginx, etc.) web server based approach instead of a Java/J2EE based one. For me it seems a better fit... Hence I would consult my sysadmin:)