Google App Engine - JSF - Facelets - Why not *.xhtml as a url-pattern? - google-app-engine

Question

I'm migrating an existing app from Tomcat to GAE. When testing locally, the xhtml pages are loaded as static pages. All processing is bypassed including my filter. However, if I reference a page that doesn't exist, my security filter forwards the request to the login.xhtml and the JSF/facelet renders fine.
Any idea why the xhtml pages are getting processed?
Other integrations: eclipse Helios, gae 1.6.5, maven (eclipse/m2), moharra 2.0.9, richfaces 4.2.0, spring 3.1.1
web.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="3.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd">
<!-- https://community.jboss.org/wiki/HowToUseRichFaces40WithGoogleAppEngine -->
<context-param>
<param-name>com.sun.faces.enableThreading</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.PROJECT_STAGE</param-name>
<param-value>Production</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.STATE_SAVING_METHOD</param-name>
<param-value>client</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<filter>
<filter-name>SecurityFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>com.xyz.web.filter.SecurityFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>SecurityFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.xhtml</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.richfaces.webapp.ResourceServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/org.richfaces.resources/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
Update:
It works if I add the following mapping and refer to the page with .jsf extension. Referring to the .xhtml directly, still loads the source. Is it typical configuration to refer to .jsf extension for a .xhtml? If so, how do you configure the app so the source isn't available when accessed via .xhtml?
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.jsf</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Answer 1

If I correctly understand your needs, you should add
<static-files>
<exclude path="/**.xhtml" />
</static-files>
in appengine-web.xml
If you skip this, your web browser will get reply from "static file server", not from JSF.