A lot of the text I have come across that deals with catching errors using the web.xml focuses on specific errors only. Below is some code for catching all generic errors thrown by a servlet.
First; Put the following in your web.xml
java.lang.Throwable /generic_errors.jsp Second; Create a file called /generic_errors.jsp in your web root and add the following.
<%@ page contentType="text/html"%><%@ page language="java"%><%@ page isErrorPage="true" import="java.io.*" %>Something hasn't gone to plan! Something hasn't gone to plan!
An errror has occured. Please use the back button or contact support.
<%if( request.getRemoteAddr().equals("127.0.0.1") ){ out.print("The following error has occured: "+ exception.toString() +"
"); StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(); PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(sw); exception.printStackTrace(pw); out.print(sw); sw.close(); pw.close();}%>