As I said I am adding the properties files as additional content to the ear under the project properties in Netbeans. This packages my properties file to the root of the .ear archive. When I deploy the .ear they end up in the ..domains/domain/applications/j2ee-apps/application directory.
This seems to only be a problem for the first time I run a servlet, and only if I haven't touched the file before hand, but it leads me to believe that I'm likely doing something wrong and getting lucky rather than doing it right.
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