Getting An AccessDeniedException with Tomcat?

Question

I want to have access to static resources outside my webapp so that they don't get destroyed every time I redeploy, but I can't seem to get them

I have a servlet that is meant to serve these images via a FileOutputStream, but it can't get the file when I deploy it on my tomcat server - it gives me a java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException.

Error from Catalina Log File

13-Feb-2020 16:53:10.621 SEVERE [http-nio-8080-exec-6] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke Servlet.service() for servlet [fileGetter] in context with path [] threw exception
    java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: C:\Users\micro\Pictures\WebsiteStuff\BlogPosts\Test Image 2020-02-12.jpg
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.WindowsException.translateToIOException(WindowsException.java:89)
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.WindowsException.rethrowAsIOException(WindowsException.java:103)
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.WindowsException.rethrowAsIOException(WindowsException.java:108)
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.WindowsFileSystemProvider.newByteChannel(WindowsFileSystemProvider.java:235)
        at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.newByteChannel(Files.java:374)
        at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.newByteChannel(Files.java:425)
        at java.base/java.nio.file.spi.FileSystemProvider.newInputStream(FileSystemProvider.java:420)
        at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.newInputStream(Files.java:159)
        at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.copy(Files.java:3195)
        at ImageGetterServlet.doGet(ImageGetterServlet.java:37)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:634)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:741)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:231)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:166)
        at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:193)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:166)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:199)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:96)
        at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:543)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:139)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:81)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:678)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:87)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:343)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:609)
        at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:65)
        at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:810)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1623)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1128)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
        at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:830)

This is especially strange given that I have allowed permission to the directory in my Catalina.policy file.

Catalina.Policy

grant {
...
permission java.io.FilePermission "C:${file.separator}Users${file.separator}micro${file.separator}Pictures${file.separator}WebsiteStuff", "read, write";  

};

For whatever reason, this exact same code (minus the permission) works perfectly in Intellij. However, here it is not able to access the file.

Could anyone let me know why this is happening? Did I set the wrong permission/put the permission in the wrong place?

EDIT: It is NOT a permission problem I granted everything in Catalina.policy java.security.AllPermission but to no avail, I’m getting the same exception.

Answer 1

I found out what was wrong. Tomcat cannot access anything inside the Users folder - probably a Windows 10 specific problem.

I just put my directory in question in the C: drive so that the path is now C:/WebsiteStuff and everything worked fine.