But here's some good news: Amazon has recently released a new free JVM (java virtual machine) implementation based on the OpenJDK specification, called Corretto. In this post, I want to share some news about it. (Off the bat, let me tell my friends on any Linux flavor other than Amazon Linux 2, this is not yet available to you. For now it is only available for Amazon Linux 2 as well as Windows, MacOS, and as a docker image. Other Linux flavors are due in Q1 2019.)

For much more, read on.

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Did you know that Oracle will no longer offer free updates/security patches for Java 8, if Java is used for commercial purposes beyond Jan 2019? After that, you must pay them for support/updates (including security updates). And did you know that they are not offering their next "long-term" release, Java 11, free for PRODUCTION use at all (and that you must obtain a separate license)? Finally, while Oracle will be offering a free openJDK implementation, did you know they will only be committing to supporting/updating it for 6 months after release, leaving subsequent updates to the community of contributors?

These are important changes for those running CF, since it runs on Java. (CF2016, 11, and 10 run on Java 8. And while CF2018 came out on Java 10, that Java release will not last for long, yet another complication/curiosity that I wrote about back in May: On ColdFusion and its support for Java 9, 10, and 11.)

For now, while Adobe is aware of the issue of the pending Oracle licensing change, they have yet to clarify things on the matter (at this writing, Nov 15 2018).

While we await that news from them, I wanted to share this news here to help my readers, as well as a bit more below for those wondering about the matter, and options going forward.

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certutil -hashfile [path\]filename MD5

The tool is built into Windows 7 and above, and Server 2008 and above (at least). Tools like it are included in other OS's, but I'm sharing the above for Windows users.

Regardless of what OS you use, for more on why knowing the checksum can be useful (and why comparing file sizes instead may not be enough), and especially with regard to some interesting info about installers for CF2016 and CF11, do read on.

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TomcatCon 2018

First up, in late September, I'll be presenting at Apache's TomcatCon (being held within ApacheCon North America 2018, in Montreal), where I will be speaking on Tomcat Monitoring Alternatives, Pros and Cons.

Adobe ColdFusion Summit 2018

The next week, in early October, I'll be presenting at Adobe ColdFusion Summit 2018 (in Las Vegas), where I will be presenting 3 times:

• first as one of the day-long pre-conference workshops, mine on "Troubleshooting Common CF Challenges", on Oct 1
• Then my "Hidden Gems in CF2018" talk on Oct 2 (which they are labeling, "Adobe ColdFusion 2018 hidden gems")
• Finally I will be presenting most of the FusionReactor vendor demo session for Intergral (along with David Tattersall, their CEO) on Oct3

Adobe don't seem to offer a way for us to directly link to the session descriptions, but the schedule does offers a popup for each talk. Mine are listed on each day.

CFCamp 2018

Finally, a few weeks later, I will be presenting at CFCamp 2018 (in Munich), where I will again be presenting the FusionReactor vendor demo presentation for Intergral (along with David).

I have also just put in to offer my Hidden Gems in 2018 talk (the plans for me to attend on Intergral's behalf only just firmed up today, in fact, so I am not yet listed as a speaker, as of today).

So another year (and season), and another raft of conferences all bunched up together. :-) But it's always a thrill to be able to present, and catch up with old friends and make new ones. As always, I hope people will find great value in my all-new sessions for this year.

In this post, I want to encourage you to update as well as show you how to do it (and a mistake you could make that would leave you NOT completely updated because you missed a step.)

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And sure, they could change to just using the ip address, but they wonder why it fails with "localhost" and whether they can fix things so that it does? In this post, I offer the explanation and solution.

In brief, the problem happens when the OS you're working on processes your "localhost" request via ipv6 (if it makes the request as ::1), rather than ipv4 (as 127.0.0.1).

• One option could be to edit your hosts file to force 127.0.0.1, and that should work
• But another would be that if you knew about your localhost calling with the ipv6 address of ::1, you should be able to add that to your CF Admin "debugging ip addresses list" (or use its "add current") button. But you will find that if you try that, it will change to "0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1", which does not solve this problem. I have a workaround for that, editing the neo-debug.xml.

Adobe could fix that last problem (and I have filed a bug report, CF-4203295), but until they do, here's a workaround and explanation of things.

And this latter point, of the inability of the Admin to accept ::1--and on the matter of editing that file--is the real focus of this post.

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In that first part, I had covered these topics:

• Resources for finding what's new
• So what are the new features in CF2018?
• ColdFusion Performance Monitoring Toolset (PMT)

In this part, I will continue with these topics:

• Finding still more about what's new in CF2018 (bugs fixed, known issues, whitepapers, deprecated features, more info on new features)
• Other info and resources on CF2018, like pricing, upgrades, licensing, trials, support timeframes
• What about CFBuilder and the API Manager?

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In particular, I want to highlight a new way (which you may have missed) where Adobe has been sharing info about the new release as a series of blog entries about each feature from CF team members. Some of these have examples (which have been missing sometimes in the past with discussions of new features). That said, and helpful though those are, there's not a single post linking to them all, so I'm offering that here in effect. There are also doc pages about each new feature, and I link to those also.

And there is still more info about the new release which is NOT covered in those blog posts (including pricing, upgrades, licensing, etc.), and I want to add those here.

Some may remember that I had done a series of posts back when CF2016 came out, and I'm condensing what I covered in a couple of those into this one. Hope it's helpful (and I will update it as I learn new information).

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But did you know that this year they have added other Adobe enterprise products, including ColdFusion. There will be 16 CF sessions, all presented by members of the CF team. Some are about CF2018 but some are not.

I think most CF folks would find the low $75 $15 price to attend (Adobe just posted this discount code: He7B52)--which includes access to the recordings of all 90 sessions--to be well worthwhile. For the sessions, speakers, and more, see below.

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