Change web.xml after deployment

[manoop]

Is it advisable to change web.xml (or, in fact, any other file) in app server after the deployment? Do ALL app servers expose their deployment/directory structure?

I would prefer making changes locally, re-building the war (or .ear, etc.), and re-deploying the application.

Any suggestions / comments. Thanks.

[wsaryada]

I also prefer to rebuild everything again and then redeploy. Because you have to test every changing that you make before deploying into the production server. If you manually change something on the production there might be something unexpected happens. In the end you also have to apply the changes on your source, if not you will loose track every changing that you apply manually on the production server.