Note: This blog post is from 2008. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

• CF Technotes and Hotfixes:A feed of recent ColdFusion tech notes and hot fixes is offered here:

  http://rss.adobe.com/www/support/recent/recent_cf.xml

  There is also a top issues feed. (FWIW, the recent_cf.xml page seems identical to the info offered via this URL.)

• DevCenter CF articles: A feed of recent ColdFusion Dev Center articles is offered here:

  http://feeds.feedburner.com/developer_center_coldfusion_tutorials

• CF Security Bulletins: While you can't get a feed of recent ColdFusion security bulletins, you can at least sign up to receive notification of new bulletins by email. Just note that the email will be for all Adobe products which have bulletins, not just for CF.

Don't have an RSS feed reader? Get them by email

If you don't have an RSS feed reader, or you simply prefer to receive such things by email, you can. Check out the various RSS-to-Email tools (all free) which I list in my category, "RSS to Email Tools", in my list of over 100 tools and resources for CFers.

Adobe Feeds for Other Products

If you're interested, you can find many other feeds across all Adobe products at http://www.adobe.com/support/rss/.

Beware of older CF feeds

One last FYI: you may find reference on the web to the following old technote URLs, which do still work but have not been updated since CF 7, such as http://weblogs.macromedia.com/product_feeds/archives/coldfusion/index.rdf and this "ColdFusion news" feed.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

I'll be presenting two talks, both of which I've presented before (so well-practiced):

• Hidden Gems in CF 8
• Introduction to the CF Administrator

After that, of course, we'll enjoy the rest of the week at Max, and I'll hope to see you there! :-)

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

Someone asserted on a list that some code failed as of CF8, but I tested it against 8, 7, 6, and 5, and it worked the same in all. Hearing that, someone else asked, "Charlie, are you running all those on the same machine or on vmware?"

I assume that the reader, like many, is using IIS on XP, which doesn't let you have more than one web site, which might seem to make it impossible, though some may know the tricks I'll mention.

Of course, folks running on Apache, or IIS on Win2k3 or Win2k Server, would just say, "create different web sites, and install each CF version into a different web site".

Fair enough, but how do you solve this using IIS on XP (or Wink2 workstation), if you can't have multiple sites? That's what I explain below.

Before I go on, though, let me make an important for those who may not be aware: you certainly can run multiple versions of CF on a single machine. They each get installed in their own directories, with their own JVM (as of CF6). The challenge is just to avoid port conflicts and external web server conflicts.

But why not just use the built-in web server?

Sure, if you use the built-in web server available in CFMX since 6, then you can indeed run multiple CF versions each with their own web docroot without conflict.

But that's not the point here. That would cause each CF instance to have its own wwwroot, and you'd have to put your code there to run it on that version.

And I have even explained in a recent blog entry that you can get around that using virtual mappings in the JRun web server, pointing to the shared document directory. But sometimes you really want to use IIS for some reason, or you just don't want to have to remember to use the right port and virtual directory name configured for the built-in web server.

But you can have multiple web sites in XP, if you know how...

Yep, some will want to note that you can indeed create multiple web sites in XP, if you use the right tools. I've written about such tools before. It's just that you can't run them at once, so you have to enable/disable each time you want to run the test. To me, that more of a hassle than just doing the one-time configuration which I discuss below.

So how do you configure things using IIS on XP?

OK, I hope I've headed off complaints some may have. Oh, well, I should add one more: what I'm about to show you is definitely not supported by Adobe. Some might even argue against doing it. Certainly, if you have problems with things while trying to work this way, they're going to tell you to use a vanilla setup.

Still, it's worked for me for years. In fact, I first wrote about it in a CFDJ article back in Sep 03 (co-authored with Jeff Houser). That was written in the timeframe of people moving from CF5 to CFMX and wanting to set things up this way, but the concept still applies even for those moving from 7 to 8, or 6 to 7. It also mentioned using the same approach for running against BD as well, which means it would apply also to Railo and Smith, etc.

Finally, since writing that article, I've also realized a few things I could have added to the article, which further motivates me writing this entry.

How I set things up

So, as explained in the article (which shows you the actual steps in IIS), I configure different IIS virtual directories called _cf5, _cf6, _cf7, and _cf8. I set each to points their CFM extension (and related CF ones) to the appropriate web server extension that would be used if I'd configured each server to work with IIS (like C:\CFusion\BIN\ISCF.DLL for 5, C:\CFusionMX\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun.dll for 6, and so on).

More important, I have them all point at the same, single document root (in my case, c:\inetpub\wwwroot). That allows me to then run code in that single directory against different editions, using a url like http://localhost/_cf5/somefile.cfm, or http://localhost/_cf7/somefile.cfm, or the default http://localhost/somefile.cfm goes against CF8.

Note that you must run the web server connector for each CF edition from CFMX and above, since it only builds those jrun.dlls (I mentioned above) if you do that. See the CF docs ("Installing and Configuring ColdFusion" to learn how to run that, even after CF is installed, if you installed it using the built-in web server instead.

Before you do, though, as explained in the article, be sure to save off the path to the DLL for .cfm file extensions, as running the configuration tool will wipe over the previous path.

Some concerns using the CF Admin in this setup

There's something else to take note of about using the CF Admin (/cfide/administrator/index.cfm) when you set things up this way.

It has to do with whether, when you install each version, you tell CF to install using the built-in web server or using IIS.

In the former case, CF will put that version's CFIDE directory (and all its related files) into the wwwroot for that built-in CF server, such as c:\coldfusion8\wwwroot\ for CF8, or c:\cfusionmx7\wwwroot\ for CF7.

In the latter case (if you tell CF during installation to use IIS), then CF will place those files into the IIS docroot you name. Assuming you would always choose that c:\inetpub\wwwroot directory, that means that its CFIDE directory will be replaced with whatever is the last CF version you install.

And that means that even if using the virtual directories above, they'll all point to the last CFIDE version, which won't work (the CF Admin can only run in the version for which it's created).

Either way, you can solve this by creating yet another virtual directory, for CFIDE, inside the version-specific virtual directories above.

So if during the installation of 6, 7, or 8 you told CF to use the built-in web server, you'd point the new CFIDE virtual directory to the builtin web server's CFIDE. For my _CF6, for instance, I'd create a CFIDE virtual directory within that to point at c:\cfusionmx\wwwroot\CFIDE.

If instead you choose to install each version using IIS, then just as you needed to save off the file extension's path to the web server DLL, you would similarly need to remember before each install to save off a copy the CFIDE directory for the previous release. This is especially key for CF5, since there is no concept of a built-in web server for that.

Back when I installed CFMX 6, before doing so, I copied the CFIDE directory to call it CFIDE5 instead. (Sure, you could do a rename, but only JUST before you installed, in case you need it.) Then I created the CFIDE VD within the _CF5 VD to point to that.

It may be worth noting here that if you do install CF 6/7/8 using the built-in web server initially, and then use the web server configurator tool to then connect them to IIS, that does not move the CFIDE from the built-in web server root to the IIS docroot. So again you will need to point your CFIDE virtual directory to that CFIDE in the built-in web server.

Why not just use the built-in web server for the CF Admin?

And going back to the original writer, you could indeed also do this using VMWARE. (I've written about how versions of it and Virtual PC are now free.) It might be overkill, though. Again, you don't need to worry about running multiple versions of CF on a single server. It's all just about avoiding port conflicts and potential external web server conflicts.

That's what this has been about all about: how to run all your code via IIS against multiple version of CF, all from a single directory.

Conclusion

Note: This blog post is from 2007. 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 what if you want to test some code in a single directory against one or more editions? Is that possible? I mean, let's say you have CF7 setup against IIS, and your code is in the c:\inetpub\wwwroot? And you've installed CF 8 for testing using its built-in web server, which runs on port 8500 (or whatever you chose) and finds its code in, for instance, c:\coldfusion8\wwwroot.

How would you have CF8 look at the code you've long had running in the IIS root? (or Apache, or a virtual directory you've setup for use by either external web server). Do you have to move the code around among these directories to test it on different versions of CF? No, you don't.

The trick is in the jrun-web.xml, which you can find in cfusionmx_home]\wwwroot\WEB-INF\jrun-web.xml . You can add a new "virtual-mapping" entry there, naming a new "alias" which points to files outside the normal CF-based wwwroot:

So now a request for http://localhost:8500/inet/ will look instead in the inetpub/wwwroot, or wherever you point it.

Update: Note that when you use the resource-path, it's case-sensitive, even on Windows, so http://localhost:8500/INET/ would not be the same.

Of course, this works also if you set up CF8 to run via your built-in web server, but setup CF 7 or 6 to run on its own built-in web server. And of course, if you're savvy enough you may figure out how to run things so that you can run all 3 using an external web server.

There are a couple of potential challenges with this technique. For one thing, if your code has hard-coded references (such as hyperlinks, images, CFLOCATIONS, etc.) to either run on a particular host (without the port) or at a particular root-relative path, then this introduction of a new port or the /inet/ alias may hamper it working. That's not a "CF" problem but rather a coding one. Your stuck then.

But it certainly works well for testing individual files. I do it all the time and have for years. Indeed, I'll share, for the sake of posterity, that this modifying of the jrun-web.xml is something I first wrote about back in 2002, but many may have missed when such info was being shared.

I'm going to go back and reprise a lot of those "oldies but goodies", spread across a few different blogs I've had over the past several years. I think I'll call them "carehart classics".

Note: This blog post is from 2007. 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.

Since many people may only be considering the feature now (either only now moving to 6.1 or 7, or 8), I want to share some resources if you're new to it. (The question came up on a list, and I offered the info there, so thought I'd pass it along here.)

First, there are a couple of articles from that time 6.1 frame:

"Introducing Multiple Server Instances in ColdFusion MX 6.1", by Tim Buntel

"Using Multiple Instances with ColdFusion MX Enterprise 6.1" video (sadly, seems no longer available)

Now, CF7 did introduce the new Instance Manager within the Admin, and that (and instances in general) is covered in the CF manual:

Configuring and Administering ColdFusion MX (Chapter 7, "Using Multiple Server Instances")

Finally, there is also a new Adobe article as of CF7:

Multiple Server Instances using ColdFusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition

(Update: There's also now a CF8 version of that: Multiple server instances using Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 Enterprise Edition. The technical content seems identical, but it appears to have had considerable editorial updating.)

There are certainly other articles folks have done in the CFDJ or at CommunityMX.com, but these should get you started.

Even though it's old news to some, it does seem that like many things, use of instances is something that may have been missed by folks. I've been contemplating a new user group presentation on the topic. Nothing new for CF8, but it seems people are considering things now that they may have ignored when 6, 6.1, or 7 came out (which is why I did my daylong class at CFUnited on what was new in 6 and 7 that folks may have missed).

One last point, if those don't make it: if you're running on Windows, don't try to create an instance with a JVM heap greater than about 1.3 GB. Though Windows should allow 2GB per app, this is just a number many found that beyond which CF won't start. Hope that all helps.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. 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.

Are you aware of all the changes that have been made in the CF Admin as of CF8? You may have seen mentions of little changes in CF8 (indeed, I've done a full hour user group talk on hidden gems), and while I mention some changes in the CF8 Admin (as I or others have noticed them), I've not seen any definitive list (from Adobe or the community) of all the changes (small and large) that might have occurred in the CF Admin interface. I figured I'd take up that challenge.

I've gone through and compared the CF Admin between 7.02 admin 8, and found changes that reflect:

• new major features you've probably heard about (whether to enable "per app settings"; limits on the number of cfthread threads; options to enable/control the new interactive step debugger; support of the new Server monitor; support of per-user access to the Admin and RDS)
• new minor features you may have missed (options to "disable CFC type check" and "disable access to internal CF java components"; options to limit the number of simultaneous requests from Flash Remoting and web services clients and CFC methods called from a URL; options to set request queue timeouts and set jrun request limits; new options to control mail server authentication; new db drivers; new option to log activity on enterprise databases; new option to perform a validation query when a connection from the pool is first used/reused; new ajax debugger window; ability to pause a scheduled task; 3 new flex-based gateways; minor additions in CAR file creation)
• realignment of related settings (request tuning settings)
• renaming of various pages and settings

Here are all the changes I could find, discussed per page:

A. Server Settings Section

Settings Page

• "Maximum number of simultaneous requests", "Maximum number of report threads", moved to new Request Tuning Page
• "Maximum size of post data" moved to bottom of this same page
• New "Enable Per App Settings", "Disable CFC Type Check", "Disable access to internal ColdFusion Java components", and "Watch configuration files for changes" (latter for WebSphere ND)

New Request Tuning Page

• (Enterprise only) Besides holding the "Maximum number of simultaneous requests" setting (renamed here in CF8 as "Template" requests) moved from the old Settings page, this page now permits setting limits on number of simultaneous requests from flash remoting and web service clients, as well as CFC function requests (not calls to CFC methods from CFML but those made via a URL, such as from a browser or Ajax client, etc, when not using ?wsdl)
• Besides holding the "Maximum number of simultaneous report threads" setting (renamed here in CF8 to add "simultaneous") moved from the old Settings page, this page also permits setting limits on number of simultaneous CFTHREAD threads
• (Enterprise only) Page adds 2 new "Queue Timeout" settings
• (Enterprise only) Page adds 2 new "JRun Master Request" limits

Mail Page

• New Username and password fields to hold SMTP server authentication info (previously, had to know how to add it to the mail server name using username@password:servername in the mail server field). Use of password field offers protection of password from someone watching over your shoulder.
• New "Connection Timeout" and "Enable SSL Socket connections to mail server" and "Enable TLS connection to mail server" options, each permitting greater security and control over authentication to SMTP servers (particularly Google mail servers)

B. Data & Services Section

Data Sources Page

• New driver types: "Apache Derby Client", "Apache Derby Embedded", to support the newly available Apache Derby database, and "MySQL 4/5" (in addition to existing MySQL 3) and "PostgreSQL"
• In "Advanced Settings", new "Log Activity" option (to log database activity to DB) for Enterprise drivers (SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, Sybase, and DB2).
• In "Advanced Settings", new "Validation Query" option (called when a connection from the pool is reused), available for use with all driver types

Verity K2 Server Page

In "Advanced Settings", new option to enter K2 Admin Username and Password.

C. Debugging & Logging Section

Debugging Output Page

• Page name changed from just "Debugging Settings" (due to addition of new "Debugger Settings" page listed below).
• New "Enable AJAX Debug Log Window" option, which allows display of the AJAX debug log window when the cfdebug flag is passed in the URL (also relies on IP address settings to control who sees this)
• "Enable Debugging" option renamed to "Enable Request Debugging Output"

New Debugger Settings Page

Enable, configure, and control interactive step debugger in Eclipse.

Scheduled Tasks Page

New option to pause a given scheduled task (new button in list of buttons to left of each scheduled task)

Systems Probes Page

Field for "Notifications Sent From" renamed to simply "E-mail".

Code Analyzer Page

Changed to list CF8 tags and functions in "Advanced Options" page.

D. New Server Monitoring Section

(Enterprise only) Offers links to the new Server Monitor and Multiserver Monitor.

E. Event Gateways Section (used to be Enterprise-only)

Gateway Types Page

New Flex-based gateways: "DataManagement", "DataServicesMessaging", "FMS"

F. Security Section

Administrator Page (renamed from "CF Admin Password" page)

(Enterprise ony) Offers new interface to use either a single Admin password (as before), or separate username/password (per authorized admin user, as enabled in new "User Manager" page listed below), or no password required at all

RDS Page (renamed from "RDS Password" page)

(Enterprise only) Offers new interface to use either a single RDS password (as before), or separate username/password (per authorized RDS user, as enabled in new "User Manager" page listed below), or no password required at all

Security Sandbox/Resource Security Page

"CF Tags" and "CF Functions" tabs for adding/editing a sandbox have been changed to list CF8 tags and functions.

New User Manager Page

(Enterprise only) Enables adding users who should be given access to either RDS, CF Admin, or Admin API functionality.

G. (Enterprise only) Packaging & Deployment Section

ColdFusion Archives Page

When adding/editing an archive, the popup window that is shown offers several sections, and the following changes have been observed:

• Server Settings: "Locking" section has been removed, while "Watcher Settings", "Server Monitor Settings", and "System Probes" have been added
• New "Web Services" settings page, with provided "pre-restore" and "post-restore" lists

(Enterprise only) J2EE Archives Page

When adding/editing an archive, there is a new "Previous Serial Number (if upgrade)" option.

Where to learn more

To find out more about these changes, see the online help available in the CF Admin, available on each admin page.

Or see the ColdFusion documentation manual, "Administering and Configuring ColdFusion 8", available at CF docs page.

I realize that some reading this will be moving from CF 6, 6.1, 7, or 7.01. I'm afraid I can't detail here all the changes between those releases. I have, however, got a day-long class I offered at CFUnited on "New in CFMX 6/7: What you may have missed", where I do outline changes in each of those releases (and intervening updaters). If you're interested in taking that class, drop me a note or leave a comment here. I am thinking of offering it as an online class (and plan to do the same regarding all changes in CF8--outside of the Admin). Hope all this helps others.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. 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.

Maybe you've wished you could hire someone with more experience but can't justify a high hourly rate. Of course, with so many web tools available to share a desktop, travel need no longer be a significant issue. Sometimes, it could help to simply have someone "look over your shoulder" via the web to resolve a problem.

Recognizing all those challenges, I've created a new service that I'm tentatively calling "AskCharlie", to be able to offer just such assistance.

Via buttons on my site or an 888 number you call, you can arrange to speak with me by phone (and optionally join me in a shared desktop session) to solve some knotty problem.

Best of all, it's very low cost and at a per minute rate (first-time callers can use a 10 minutes free option, and everyone gets a money-back guarantee). That and more are explained on my site:

http://www.carehart.org/askcharlie/

There you can learn more about why I did it, how it works, how the remote desktop sharing assistance works (no problem with firewalls, for instance), and more.

I'd welcome your thoughts on what you think of the idea.

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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 for CF8: As an update to this entry from 2006, which is focused on CF7, I'll note that there was yet another approach that was added in CF8. Both still work and have their own value. More on the CF8 feature in my later blog entry. Still, the feature added in CF7 is important to understand, too, so please read on.

[....Continue Reading....]

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

I've posted a comment there about how to measure and report on whether and when template cache misses occur. (Again, read his post for more on what a means.)

I would have posted it as a trackback from here, but I don't see how to do that in BlogCFC. So instead, I'm pointing you to it this way. :-)

To save you the trouble, if you just want to know how to measure it, here's what I wrote:

Thanks, Ashwin. More detail from Adobe folks is of course always welcome.

But I do think it's useful to point out also how one can measure and report on whether and when template cache misses occur. There are at least two.

First, it's reported in the command-line CFSTAT tool as CP/Sec (for cache pops per second), and reports both a current and highwater mark. (Of course, you must enable CFSTAT support in the CF Admin, and the cfstat is in the cfusion/bin or cfusionmx/bin.)

It's also reported in the Windows Performance Monitor, by way of the ColdFusion/ColdFusion MX "performance object" counter called "Cache Pops/Sec" (again, assuming that you've enabled Perfmon support in the CF Admin).

With perfmon's ability to create logs and alerts, it should be easy for someone to create a mechanism to track if you ever have a non-zero value, which would suggest increasing the template cache size.

I meant also to mention that there is an old but still useful Allaire technote offering some more insight into caching, including using CFSTAT and more.