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.

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, 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.

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

For more information, see Using 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

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

• Set up and maintain your server
• Create and manage ColdFusion cluster
• 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.

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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 Administering ColdFusion Security.  

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

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. 

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

The ColdFusion process discussion does not apply when deploying ColdFusion on a J2EE server

Manage the ColdFusion process in UNIXThe 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

1. Log in as root.
2. Enter the following command: cd cf_root/bin
3. Enter the appropriate command, as the following table describes:

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

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.htm}}or{{http://127.0.0.1:8500/myindex.htm (built-in web server)
3. Press 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.

The ColdFusion 11 Administrator has significant new functionality that includes:

WebSocket enhancements

ColdFusion 11 has introduced the proxy support for WebSocket. There is a new proxy module (that runs inside IIS and Apache Web Server) that can intercept the ColdFusion WebSocket requests and redirect the requests to the ColdFusion Server. 

See WebSocket enhancements

PDF generation enhancements

To generate high quality PDFs from HTML documents, 2 new tags, <cfhtmltopdf> and <cfhtmltopdfitem> have been introduced in ColdFusion 11.

See PDF generation enhancements

Security enhancements

ColdFusion 11 has a lot of security enhancements and bug fixes. This update fixes a few security issues and has strengthened the Server to a large extent. Some notable security enhancements are described in the following document:

See Security Enhancements (ColdFusion 11)

Social enhancements

ColdFusion 11 has introduced the support for dynamically generating Like button, Tweet button, and Comment box for social media sites. 

See Social Enhancements

REST enhancements

ColdFusion 11 now supports site-level REST applications and enables pluggable serializer and deserializer.

See REST Enhancements in ColdFusion 11

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 10. For details, see Server update using ColdFusion Administrator.

Configure built-in web server

Instead of JRun, Tomcat is embedded with a stand-alone ColdFusion 10 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.

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.

For details, see Restricting access to ColdFusion Administrator

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 for most pages of the ColdFusion Administrator, such as the following:

However, for the following pages on the ColdFusion Administrator, all actions performed on the page are written to the audit logs:

• Server Settings
• Request tuning
• CACHING
• Memory VARIABLES
• Java and JVM
  The default log location is cfusion\logs\audit.log.

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

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.