Static content in root not excluded

[Chuck Lega]

I try to exclude some/all static (html) files from beeing delivered as static content since I want to apply a auth-filter for all requests.

I have tried every way I can think of in web.xml. The snippet below works for every file in the war directory and subdirs, but NOT for the files in the root, i.e. /file.html gets delivered as static no matter what.

Is it possible to exclude static files from /war ?

I have read every thread I can find on this matter, but I just dont get this case to work... :-(

<static-files>

  <exclude path="/**.*"/>

  <exclude path="/file.html"/>

  <exclude path="file.html"/>

</static-files>

Jaques