I have a few Java web applications that I am currently working on
using JavaServer Faces.

Each of these applications needs to access the same group of image
files.  I do not want to have to provide and maintain separate copies
of the image files for each web app.  Nor do I want to have to put all
of the images files in the WARs each time I deploy the apps.

I want to be able to put the image files in a central place on the
server and at runtime allow each web application to access them as
needed.  This central location would be inaccessible unless you went
through the web application.

For example.
I would store the images in a file system called
/web/images

The web applications, myapp1 & myapp2, would be located in
/web/apps/myapp1
/web/apps/myapp2

I have setup JNDI database connection pools and used those to access
common databases from multiple apps.  What I need would be similar,
but instead of a database it would just be some directories and
files.  And I do not need just the data, but I need to be able to
actually display the image on a web page generated by JSF.

A push in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks.