Enable/Disabl Directory Listing in Tomcat

By default, directory listing (list content of a directory instead of render a web page) is forbidden in Tomcat.

To enable it globally, modified file <tomcat>/conf/web.xml.
Default setting for default servlet is:

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>debug</param-name>
            <param-value>0</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>listings</param-name>
            <param-value>false</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>

Change the param-value for parameter listings to true.

To enable it for a specific web application, add following snippet to the web.xml of the application

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>default_new</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>
          org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet
        </servlet-class>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>debug</param-name>
            <param-value>0</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>listings</param-name>
            <param-value>true</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
    <!-- The mapping for the default servlet -->
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>default_new</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

Note: servet-name can not be default because it is name of tomcat's default servlet . So you need to use a different name. Also servlet-mapping element is necessary to make it work.