I am seeing the same issue after upgrading my application to jboss 4.2.3. The external directory configuration was working fine on jboss 4.0.5. In jboss 4.2.3 I see the error: 13:36:32,476 WARN [config] Unable to process deployment descriptor for context '/releases' My configuration in server.xml looks like this: | <Context path="/releases" appBase="" | docBase="${jboss.server.home.dir}/enmsdata/releases"> | </Context> What do you need to do to make it work with jboss 4.2.3. Do you need jbossweb native connectors? Thanks. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4181596#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...