Without an Internet connection, portal admins are unable to deploy any portletApp that contains a web.xml file with a <!DOCTYPE> declaration like the following:

<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application
2.3//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">

XML parsers will *always* try to load the DTD from java.sun.com, even if validation is turned off. Many of the example portlet applications provided with uPortal contain <!DOCTYPE> declarations like this one.

This means that the 'deployPortletApp' target requires an Internet connection, or (alternately) someone must manually remove the DTD references or entire <!DOCTYPE> declarations (it works without them) from the web.xml files of any portletApps that will be deployed.