There are some workarounds. A. Redeploy the webapp. B. Add welcome file path to the request via filter as follows. Then localhost:8080/hello/ will be able to access the welcome file without redeploy. <server name= " default -server" > ... <host name= " default -host" alias= "localhost" > ... <filter-ref name= "index-rewrite-filter" /> </host> </server> ... <filters> <expression-filter name= "index-rewrite-filter" expression= "regex(pattern= '/(.*?)/' , full-match= true ) -> rewrite( '/$${1}/index.html' )" /> </filters> If modify the regex as regex(pattern='/(.*?)/$', then that can be accessed by requests other than context root. <expression-filter name= "index-rewrite-filter" expression= "regex(pattern= '/(.*?)/$' , full-match= true ) -> rewrite( '/$${1}/index.html' )" /> Like as following urls. localhost:8080/hello/ localhost:8080/hello/test1/ localhost:8080/hello/test1/test2/

1. create exploded web app. $ unzip hello.war.zip 2. deploy exploded web app. /deployment=hello:add(runtime-name= "hello.war" , enabled= true , content=[{ "path" => "/PATH_TO/hello.war" , "archive" => false }]) 3. The application doesn't have welcome file, so the eap returns 403 for the following request. $ curl -v http: //localhost:8080/hello/ -> 403. 4. add index.html manually. $ touch /PATH_TO/hello/index.html 5. EAP still respond 403 even though the index.html was added. $ curl -v http: //localhost:8080/hello/ -> 403. Then the index.html could be accessed. $ curl -v http: //localhost:8080/hello/index.html -> 200. 6.redeploy / reboot eap /deployment=hello:redeploy or shutdown/start 7. The static file can be accessed as 200. $ curl -v http: //localhost:8080/hello/ -> 200.