Administering ColdFusion

Although you use the ColdFusion Administrator to perform most ColdFusion administration tasks, you can also manage databases, web server configurations, and ColdFusion Search Server.

    About the ColdFusion Administrator

    The ColdFusion Administrator provides a browser-based interface for managing your ColdFusion environment. You can configure many settings to provide optimal levels of security and functionality. The available options are based on your edition of ColdFusion —Standard or Enterprise—as well as your configuration: server, multiserver, or J2EE. For more information on ColdFusion configurations, see Preparing to Install ColdFusion in Installing ColdFusion.

    The default location for the ColdFusion Administrator login page is:

    http://servername[:portnumber]/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm

    Where servername is the fully qualified domain name of your web server. Common values for servername are localhost or 127.0.0.1 (each refers to the web server on the local computer).

    If you are using the ColdFusion built-in web server, include the port number as part of the servername. The default port number for the server configuration is 8500; for example, http://servername:8500/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm. The default port number for the multiserver configuration is 8300. If you are using the J2EE configuration, include the port number that the web server of the J2EE application server uses.

    If you were using the built-in web server in a version earlier than ColdFusion MX 7 and upgraded to ColdFusion 8, the installer automatically finds an unused port for the built-in web server (typically 8501).

    If your ColdFusion Administrator is on a remote computer, use the Domain Name Services (DNS) name or Internet Protocol (IP) address of the remote host.

    To access the ColdFusion Administrator, enter the password specified when you installed ColdFusion.

    Note: If you are running ColdFusion in a multihomed environment and have problems displaying the ColdFusion Administrator, see Web Server Management for configuration information.

    For more information, see Using the ColdFusion Administrator.

      Key features of the ColdFusion Administrator

      • Server configuration: The Server area of the Administrator lets you set up and manage the functionality of ColdFusion. You can define caching preferences, connect to data sources for use in ColdFusion applications, select debugging options, manage variables, set up task automation, and register Java applets, settings, and custom tags.

      • Security: The Security area of the Administrator lets you secure your development environment. You can enable password protection for the Administrator, enable password protection for remote access, and control access by using ColdFusion tags and functions to server resources.

      • ColdFusion resources: The ColdFusion Administrator home page provides access to the following information and support:

        • Local resources - release notes, new features documentation, product documentation, and example applications

        • Technical support - installation, support, resources, and TechNotes

        • Online resources - product registration, developer information, white papers, training, enhancement requests, and security

      What you can do in ColdFusion Administrator

      Some of the tasks that you can perform in ColdFusion Administrator:

      • Set up and maintain your server

      • Monitor system performance

      • Secure your resources

      • Manage and analyze log files

      • Connect to ColdFusion data sources

      • Schedule tasks

      • Integrate Java applets and custom tags

      • Download and install Server Manager

      • Configure OpenOffice

      • Manage undelivered mails

      • Access online product documentation, release notes, product upgrades, and TechNotes

      • Download and install product updates and hotfixes.

        Optional configuration overview

        After you perform basic configuration tasks in the Administrator pages, consider taking these actions:

        • Determine the identity of a website visitor: ColdFusion lets you use client variables to determine the identity of a client visiting your site. By managing client variables, you can use this information to customize page content for your clients. Select Server Settings > Client Variables in the ColdFusion Administrator navigation pane to specify a default storage mechanism for client variables and to optionally specify the data source used to store client information. For details, see Client variable planning and Manage client variables.

        • Create logical aliases for physical directories: You can create logical aliases for paths to directories on your server. Select Server Settings > Mappings in the ColdFusion Administrator navigation pane.

          By creating aliases for directories on your server, you can use them in your ColdFusion applications. These are referred to as mappings. You typically use two types of mappings:

          • ColdFusion mappings: Equates a logical path (for example, /payroll) with a physical directory path (for example, C:\finance\payroll). ColdFusion uses these mappings for the cfinclude tag, the cfmodule tag, and when locating ColdFusion components.

          • Web server mappings: Web server mappings also equate a logical path to a physical path, but at the web server level. Web server mappings are in effect for all requests made to a web server. In many cases, web server mappings render ColdFusion mappings unnecessary.

          For details, see Create logical mappings.

        • Register Java applets and CFX tags: You can use Java applets and CFX tags in your ColdFusion applications. Register the applets on the appropriate Extensions pages by selecting Extensions > Java Applets or Extensions > CFX Tags in the ColdFusion Administrator navigation pane. After they are registered, you can incorporate the applets and tags in your applications. For details, see Java applets and the CFX Tags.

        • Configure standard debugging options: You can get useful debugging information about your application page requests from browsers by setting debugging preferences. Select Debugging & Logging > Debug Output Settings in the ColdFusion Administrator navigation pane to set up debugging. For details, see Select debugging options.

        • Perform advanced administration tasks: If you require granular security control over your ColdFusion resources, or need to decentralize ColdFusion administrative responsibilities, implement ColdFusion Security. In the ColdFusion Administrator navigation pane, select Security > Sandbox Security (Enterprise Edition) or Security > Resource Security (Standard Edition). To take advantage of additional capabilities that ColdFusion provides for controlling access by applications to resources on the server (such as data sources, files, directories, and IP addresses), consider configuring Sandbox Security. For details, see Configure ColdFusion security.

          Services and processes

          ColdFusion uses services in Windows operating systems and processes on UNIX systems.

          Note: This does not apply when deploying ColdFusion on a J2EE server.
          If you enable or disable security or change any option in the Java and JVM Settings page in the ColdFusion Administrator, you must stop and restart ColdFusion for your changes to take effect. For details, see Start and stop ColdFusion.

            ColdFusion services in Windows

            The ColdFusion installation creates the following services in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003:

            Service

            Description

            ColdFusion Application Server

            The main ColdFusion service. ColdFusion pages cannot be processed if this service is not running.

            Note: This does not apply when deploying ColdFusion on a J2EE server.

            ColdFusion .NET extension

            The extension that lets you access .NET assembly classes as ColdFusion objects. Uses Java proxies to represent the .NET classes on the ColdFusion system, and requires that the ColdFusion .NET-side agent run on the system where the assemblies are located.

            ColdFusion ODBC Agent

            The service that configures data sources for the ColdFusion ODBC Server.

            ColdFusion ODBC Server

            The middle-tier service for ODBC connections that use the ColdFusion DataDirect drivers for Microsoft Access and ODBC Socket.

            ColdFusion Search Server

            Manages and controls configuration and services of Solr.

            ColdFusion processes on UNIX

            Note: The coldfusion process discussion does not apply when deploying ColdFusion on a J2EE server.

            The ColdFusion installation creates a single process in UNIX called cfusion. To check whether it is running, use the following command:

            ps - eaf | grep coldfusion

            If it is running, your computer returns a line like the following:

            nobody 4528 1 10 12:44 pts/0 00:00:07 /opt/coldfusion/bin/coldfusion -start

            Manage the ColdFusion process in UNIX

            1. Log in as root.

            2. Enter the following command: cd cf_root/bin

            3. Enter the appropriate command, as the following table describes:

              Task

              Command

              Start ColdFusion

              coldfusion start

              Stop ColdFusion

              coldfusion stop

              Restart ColdFusion

              coldfusion restart

              View performance information for ColdFusion

              coldfusion status

            Working environment

              Layout of the ColdFusion Administrator

              To become familiar with the layout of the ColdFusion Administrator pages, open the Administrator and refer to the following descriptions:

              Area or Button

              Description

              Help button

              Displays online help for the page in the ColdFusion Administrator you are viewing.

              System information button

              Displays system information.

              Resource button

              Displays links to additional sources of information.

              Left pane

              Lets you navigate to pages in the ColdFusion Administrator.

              Verify that the web server is running

              Before you install ColdFusion, ensure that your web server is installed and running.

              1. Open a web browser.

              2. In the address line, enter the URL for a web page or site. For example, if the file myindex.htm is in your web document root directory, load the page in your browser, using the localhost URL, as follows:

                http://127.0.0.1/myindex.htmorhttp://127.0.0.1:8500/myindex.htm (built-in web server)

              3. Click Enter. If the web server is running, the page appears, otherwise, an error message appears.

              System information

              Use the ColdFusion System Information page to do the following:

              • Update or upgrade a Trial or Developer Edition of ColdFusion as follows:

                1. On the System Information page, enter your product serial number in the New License field.

                2. Click Submit Changes.

              • See the expiration date of your Trial copy of ColdFusion Administrator.

              • Identify values that correspond to several ColdFusion server variables.

              To access the ColdFusion System Information page, click the System Information button in the top right of the ColdFusion Administrator.

              About web server administration

              ColdFusion applications require a web server to process ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) pages. The server and multiserver configurations provide a built-in web server along with support for external web servers, such as Apache, IIS, and Sun ONE Web Server (formerly known as iPlanet).

              For more information, see Web Server Management.

                About Solr administration

                ColdFusion includes Solr Server search technology. Solr is a high-performance open search engine designed to process searches quickly in a high-performance, distributed system.

                For more information, see Solr Server and Collections.

                  What’s new in this release

                  The ColdFusion Administrator has significant new functionality that includes:

                  Server updates

                  Verify if there are any product updates using the ColdFusion Administrator (Server Update > Update). The updates can include hot fixes and security hot fixes for ColdFusion Zeus. For details, see Updates page.

                  Configure built-in web server

                  Instead of JRun, Tomcat 7.0.8 is embedded with a stand-alone ColdFusion Zeus installation. ColdFusion Administrator provides options to configure Tomcat. For details, see Enterprise Manager section.

                  Scheduling

                  Scheduling tasks feature (Server Settings > Scheduled Tasks) has been enhanced in this release. The enhancements include options for Application and Server Level scheduled tasks and enabling cluster setup. For details, see Scheduled Tasks.

                  Caching

                  Options to use internal cache to store queries, clear query cache, and to clear folder-specific template cache. For details, see Caching page.

                  Web services

                  ColdFusion supports Axis 2 web service and an option is provided to specify the Axis version. For details, see Web Services.

                  REST services

                  Option to register an application with REST service. For details, see REST Services page.

                  Enabling RDS

                  RDS can be enabled from ColdFusion Administrator. For details, see RDS page.

                  Accessing the ColdFusion Administrator

                  If you are using the Developer Edition of ColdFusion, in the previous releases, only two IP addresses are allowed to access ColdFusion Administrator concurrently. Even if either or both of the IP addresses do not access ColdFusion Administrator, a third IP address is denied the right.

                  In this release, access is permitted to any two IP addresses concurrently. For example, Client1 and Client2 already have access to ColdFusion Administrator. When either Client1 or Client2 does not access ColdFusion Administrator, Client3 is allowed access.

                  Restricting access to ColdFusion Administrator

                  For details, see Restricting access to ColdFusion Administrator

                  Logging Administrator actions

                  By default all major ColdFusion Administrator actions are logged. The log contains details that include current user, date, time, and action taken.

                  Note that the logs cover only high-level actions such as the following:
                  <timestamp>: <Username>: <deleted data source name>
                  The default log location is cfusion\logs\audit.log.

                  Changes to the default settings

                  The following default settings in the previous releases of ColdFusion have been revised in this release:

                  Area/UI

                  Path

                  Previous value

                  New value

                  Client variable storage name

                  Server Settings > Client Variables > Select Default Storage Mechanism for Client Sessions

                  Registry

                  Cookie

                  Use UUID for cftoken

                  Server Settings > Settings

                  Unchecked

                  Checked

                  Enable Global Script Protection

                  Server Settings > Settings

                  Unchecked

                  Checked

                  Maximum number of simultaneous Template requests

                  Server Settings > Request Tuning > Request Limits

                  10

                  25

                  Maximum number of simultaneous CFC function requests

                  Server Settings > Request Tuning > Request Limits

                  10

                  15

                  Minimum JVM Heap Size (MB)

                  Server Settings > Java and JVM

                  		 

                  256

                  Maximum size of post data (in MB)

                  Server Settings > Settings > Request Size Limits

                  100

                  20

                  Enable ColdFusion Event Gateway Services

                  Event Gateways > Settings

                  Checked

                  Unchecked

                  Session cookie settings

                  The following settings can be made at the server level using ColdFusion Administrator (Server Settings > Memory Variables > Session Cookie Settings).

                  Adobe recommends that you use the new settings.

                  Setting

                  Default

                  HTTPONLY session cookie

                  Checked

                  Secure Session cookie

                  Unchecked

                  Session cookie timeout

                  Maximum of 30 years and minimum of two minutes.