Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

That's not really new news, as the same option was offered in CF 6-9. But there are some new things in CF10 to consider about that option, and that's what I'd like to share here.

First, I want to show how if you chose NOT to enable the built-in web server, you CAN enable it after the fact, with just a simple modification to a single xml file (which is a different one in CF10, and I want to show where that is, share some tips on changing it, and point out where to learn more.)

But there are also still more things about the built-in web server that you can control, which you may not readily discern even from the docs, and I provide here additional info with respect to that.

Finally, while in previous releases the built-in web server (which was really the JRun web server) was something generally regarded (even warned in the installer) to be used only for development and testing, the built-in web server in ColdFusion 10 is in fact the Tomcat web server (Coyote), which is a much better web server out of the box, so you may want to consider it even for production.

I realize that last point will be "pushing it" for some. :-) Hey, I'm not saying that you should change anything, just letting you know that some might reconsider things. Hear me out, please. I'm just sharing documented info that might not be so readily found about a relatively new subject for the CF community (so don't shoot the messenger!) I'll point later to other Tomcat references making the same point, such as this 2010 article (no longer available via its original link, http://www.tomcatexpert.com/blog/2010/03/24/myth-or-truth-one-should-always-use-apache-httpd-front-apache-tomcat-improve-perform, but archived here: Myth or truth: One should always use Apache httpd in front of Apache Tomcat to improve performance?.

Background

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

The quick answer is that there's a getInstanceName method in the runtime.cfc of the Admin API. And yes, any user can execute this code. They do not need to BE an admin. You can use this in production code. For more, see below.

If that's enough to get you going, have at it. For more info, read on.

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

But have you ever wondered which jvm.config is used by a given instance? Or perhaps found multiple jvm.configs in your [jrun4]\bin directory and wondered which instance each went with? The answer isn't as straightforward as it may seem, when you're running CF as Windows Services. There's no single CF feature that reports this, but I do offer a solution here.

The simple answer is that one can find the information in the registry. The longer answer, including how to find that, as well as how to get that info more easily from the command line if you may prefer, follows.

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

The common answer offered is that one should use the "system info" page in the CF Admin, and its available "update level" field.

But I will assert that's not the "right answer" after all, or certainly not the "best answer" to really know what hotfixes (plural) have been applied. Know why? If not, I'll explain here, and I'll show what I would say is the "right" answer to "what hotfixes have you applied?"

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Ultimately, he realized it was that when one of his colleagues logged into CF 10 Admin, he got logged out, and vice-versa. Certainly frustrating.

And yes, it's by design in CF10, as part of various security enhancements. The issue is that only one person can be logged in to a given account name in the CF Admin (by default, it's "admin"). There is a solution: create new logins for each person needing to access the Admin. I discuss this and much more below.

Update 1: Since I wrote this entry back in June '12, I did a video for Adobe about a year later where I walk through this in several minutes. You may want to check that out.

Update 2: Great news for those using CF11: CF11 addresses this problem with a new feature in the CF Admin. You may want to read ahead to understand the problem to appreciate the point of this solution. Anyway, see the Security > Administrator page and its option, "Allow Concurrent Login Sessions for Administrator Console". The docs say that it will be disabled by default, allowing multipel logings, unless you choose the "securee profile" option during installation or via the admin (the ability to change that in the Admin is another new feature of CF11), in which case concurrent access by a given account it will be disabled.

Where's is this change in CF10 documented?

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

By now most in the CF world (who are connected to community news, at least) should have heard that today is the last day Adobe will be offering a release of CF 9 including Verity, and CF8 at all. I offer here a little more news on that, but more important I offer how you can still find and get those downloads if you want them, even when no longer listed as links on the site. They're now no longer easy to find.

(And I have updated the entry as of Aug 3, 2012, and all below still applies, unless stricken out.)

First, as for what's changing, it's that Adobe has to "pull from the shelves" any releases of CF that include Verity. But while many have been asserting that CF9 was going away, that's not true. And even CF8 can be obtained formally under certain conditions.

But I also offer here some ways you may be able to get these files even if Adobe no longer offers links to them.

But let's tackle a few points of common misinformation this week.

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Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

The good news is that you just need to update the one hotfix jar. While it is discussed in the technote for the hotfix, the note about this update is sadly (currently) at the BOTTOM of the technote. I'll repeat what it says here, to give it some more visibility:

Note - Updated on March 29, 2012

Following bug is reported for ColdFusion 801 against this security bulletin hotfix.

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError Exception is thrown while using cffile upload.

We have updated the hotfix files of ColdFusion 801 to include the fix for the above issue. Users who have already applied the hotfix for ColdFusion 801 can just update the hotfix jar.

I'm pretty sure this is fixing what some found to be a reliance in the hotfix on your having applied one of the specific Cumulative hotfixes, but if someone had not, or if they inadvertently removed the CHF during the process of adding this single one, things would break. I'll note that the HF technote above does say very specifically what jars to remove, when applying the hotfix. Some people in haste instead delete all the hf and chf jars, or delete chf hars when it says to remove only hf jars. They so look similar in name.

I cover this issue of being careful about applying hotfixes (there are other mistakes you can easily make) in another blog entry I did, CF911: Are you finding CF (or CF Admin) busted after applying a hotfix? Three possible reasons.

And before someone chimes in to lament, "this is what's so wrong with the CF hotfix process, that mistakes can be easily made", I cover that too. The short answer is that Adobe is addressing this in CF10, and may even offer something to help us later for CF 8 and 9. We shall see.

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Update: Great news. It turns out that just days before I wrote this entry in late 2011, Adobe had in fact addressed and resolved this problem (quietly, I'd say) by making security fixes written from Dec 2011 (apsb11-29) on now have 2 sets of steps, one for if you HAD applied the security hotfix previous to it, and one for if you HAD NOT. And this has proven to be the case for the next few, as I write this update in late 2012. So we can now consider them effectively "cumulative", for those from Dec 2011, on. You need only focus on the latest, and follow either of its 2 provided sets of steps.

That said, I'm not 100% sure if all those from Dec 2011 include all ones prior to that. Has anyone tested things to know?

I'll leave the rest of the note below here for posterity, but stricken out.

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