Question

Using Spring MVC, do interceptors only intercept defined controller mappings or can they also be used to intercept general requests made within the servlet context?

Answer 1

Spring MVC interceptors intercept only request to controllers. For intercepting other requests use Filters.

UPDATE: If you want to configure filters as Spring beans, you can use DelegatingFilterProxy, as follows:

@Component(name = "myFilter")
public class MyFilter implements Filter { ... }

(or <bean id = "myFilter" class = "...MyFilter">...</bean> in XML config).

Then, in web.xml:

<filter>
    <!-- By default, delegates to the bean of the same name -->
    <filter-name>myFilter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>myFilter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>