No it doesn't upload the directory, only the path is replicated to the nodes, then the directory needs to exist locally on that machine.
Really useful if you have a docroot / content directory that you want to make available for all nodes in a cluster from a mounted NFS-drive for example and use the same mount-point on all nodes.
The patch would probably consist of blocking limitations in the admin tools since the functionality seems to work.
[Message sent by forum member 'jesper_soderlund' (jesper_soderlund)]
http://forums.java.net/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=264533