Help: Unable to set root servlet in a shared hosting environment using Tomcat

[leesiulung]

I'm using a shared hosting environment with GoDaddy and can't set the http://www.domain.com/ (the root) to servlet, i.e. the servlet that gets invoked when we go to the homepage.

I have the following web.xml file configured that currently works on my testing server:

    <servlet>
        <display-name>MainPage</display-name>
        <servlet-name>MainPage</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.somedomain.MainPage</servlet-class>
    </servlet>
 
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>MainPage</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/mainpage</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
 
    <welcome-file-list>
        <welcome-file>mainpage</welcome-file>
        ...
    </welcome-file-list> 

The application is configured as the 'ROOT' application on my development server, but shared in the hosting environment. I wonder if some permissions are not given since it is shared hosting environment. The error message I get when visiting the page is:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
 
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Apache/1.3.33 Server at dev9.somedomain.com Port 80 

Unfortunately the server get's restarted once a day, so multiple suggestions would be much appreciated. I will upload them all at once.

[Hack]

Have you posted this problem with GoDaddy?

[leesiulung]

I did pose it to GoDaddy, but like any big hosting provider they don't really care. They make no effort in telling how their environment is configured and always throw the "we cannot assist you with scripting issues"....