Reset ColdFusion Administrator password

Today I wanted to edit a datasource name in the ColdFusion Administrator but I did not remember the password on this development server (hell, where are the nice little yellow post-its ;-)).
Here you can find a nice solution how to achive a password - reset.

XML vs JSON: Incredible performance differences

I admit - I am a real fan of XML and try to use this format whenever it is possible. The reason is simple: It's a clear format and very easy to exchange data with other applications (also with applications not running in a browser).
During the finalization of a project we came across several performance problems with a huge dataset and I tried to move the data interaction to JSON.
The result: The time of parsing a XML with jQuery (loop over the element using each) was up to 100 times higher than doing a simple JSON request (According to the results of the firebug console.timer output). No special treatment, just looping over the records and building an array in javaScript using the default jQuery way.

So, I hope in future times XML parsing will speed up with faster computers (although I think there will be not much gain in the near future because browser XML parsers just use MSXML or Xerces right now).
If you do not have ColdFusion 8 (which offers built-in JSON support), you might take a look at this library.

20 ways to secure your apache server

I can only recommend to go through the points of this posting if you want to secure your apache webserver.

Easy way to run several ColdFusion instances using one apache server

As you might know, in the server configuration JRun is the J2EE server in the background of CF and so in the apache configuration you will notice that the whole connector stuff is done using JRunConfig* directives.
As long as only one version of CF is running using apache as webserver everything is fine, it starts getting complicated when you decide to run e.g. 7 and 8 on one machine using one apache instance. Here you can find a solution how to set it up with different JRun ports which I did once as well (took me hours to find out all these stuff ;-)).
A very nice, quick and dirty solution I came accross some time ago is to use the power of mod_proxy - in this case you tell apache to forward all requests to a different port / URL whatever.
So I did the following:

• Set up CF 7
• Connect CF 7 to apache using the default way
• Set up CF 8 using the internal web server
• Enabled mod_proxy in apache (AddModule / LoadModule)
• Added the following lines in my virtual host configuration for a CF8 host:
  ProxyRequests on
  ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:8500/
• Worked!

Of course this is not a proper solution for deployment but for development purporses it's great. Using this way all apache modules and configuration possibilites (e.g. mod_rewrite, mod_deflate, access control) can be used and the internal webserver of CF is just the dummy backend.

No ugly JRUN error message on ColdFusion startup any more

Wouldn't it be nice to get rid of the ugly JRUN startup error message? Here (bloginblack) I have found a way to accomplish this - you just need to add a new line in the connector configuration in the apache configuration. I will give it a try in the next few days.

ColdFusion 8 / Apache 2.2.3

I recently set up a new testing server using the latest debian etch release. During the setup, apache 2.2.3 has been installed as default webserver and to make ColdFusion 8 (and maybe 7) running with this release, the following steps are necessary:

• Install CF8 using the built-in webserver
  
• Open /etc/init.d/apache2 with vi
• Note the paths set by APACHE2 / APACHE2CTL
• Now execute the following command:

• /opt/coldfusion8/runtime/bin/wsconfig -server coldfusion -ws Apache -bin /usr/sbin/apache2 -script /usr/sbin/apache2ctl -dir /etc/apache2/ -v
• bin = APACHE2 variable
• script = APACHE2CTL variable
• Open the httpd.conf and add AddHandler jrun-handler .cfm .cfc .cfswf.jsp .jws to the last line (.cfm / .cfc might be missing). Found this solution here.

Done!

Access other application scopes

In one of our projects, it was necessary to access application scope variables stored in a different application than the current one for security reasons. After some research I came accross this posting, which covers the technique to do exactly this: http://www.lynchconsulting.com.au/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/23/Hacking-the-application-scope-in-CFMX

var oApp = createObject("java","coldfusion.runtime.ApplicationScopeTracker");
var applications = oApp.getApplicationKeys();
Of course, this is an undocumented feature and who knows if it will still work in the next CF version, but it's good to know that it is possible ;-)