Installing Cold Fusion MX7 on Windows Server 2008 R2 64bit or Windows Server 2012 R2 64bit

Installing ColdFusion MX7 on Windows 2008 R2 64bit and Windows 2012 R2 64bit

With the end of support for Windows 2003, it was time to move our Cold Fusion services to a newer server architecture.

Though we've generally moved to ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC, we have a few applications that were developed for Cold Fusion MX 7 around 2006. 

We haven't had time to rewrite some of the old ColdFusion MX7 applications, so we kept those applications running on the old Windows 2003 platform.  Since we don't develop any new applications in CFMX7 and we plan to eventually rewrite everything in .NET, we have not bothered to purchase a newer version of Cold Fusion, as is recommended by ADOBE.

 NOTE: CFMX7 is not supported on Windows 2008 and Windows 2012.  You should probably purchase and use the latest version of Cold Fusion for your production environment, especially if you intend on supporting those CF apps over the long term.

Given that note, here are the steps that I’ve compiled to get Cold Fusion MX7 installed and working on Windows 2008 or Windows 2012.

Step 1: Enable the Web Application Role, IIS6 Compatibility features, and ISAPI Extensions features on the Win 2008 or Windows 2012 machine:

 

In Windows 2008:

• Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features On or Off >
• This will open the "Server Manager".
• Expand Roles>Web Server>
• On right panel, under "Summary>Role Services>" click on "Add Role Services".
• In the "Add Role Services" window, select all options under "Management Tools>IIS 6 Management Compatibility"
• Click on Install.

Also, for Windows 2012, Ensure CGI and ISAPI Extensions features are installed on Windows 2012.

Server Roles -> Web Server (IIS) -> Web Server ->Application Development ->CGI and ISAPI Extensions

Test that IIS works and install Cold Fusion MX7 on the server.

1)      Test that IIS works by browsing to the server’s url.

2)      Install CFMX7 using the installation disk/files.

a.       This will complete successfully, but you will have to complete the installation manually.

 

 

Configure the Application Pool

 

The application pool for Cold Fusion MX should be configured for 32 bit applications and I recommend setting the application pool to use the Non-Managed Code, Classic format.

• Open IIS Manager
• Expand MachineName> Application Pools>
• Right click on AppPool name (eg: DefaultAppPool) and select "Advanced Settings"
• Change "Enable 32-bit Applications" to "true". Click OK

 

Additional recommended Application Pool Settings for CFMX7 App Pool:

·         No Managed Code

·         App Pool Account:  Use the  System account.

·         Add the System account to the IIS_IUSRS group via Computer Management -> Users and Groups.  Verify that the account has access to the CFusionMX7 and wwwroot folders for your web site.

·          Also, if the app pool keeps crashing, increase the Rapid Fail Protection -> Maximum Failures setting to 9999.

o    That will prevent IIS from shutting down the app pool just because CFMX may be having issues.

 

Manually Configure Websites to Run ColdFusion pages

Source: ColdFusion Manual Configuration

NOTE: these instructions are based off of installing ColdFusion root on C:\CFusionMX7 directory.  Also, we will assume your wwwroot directory is at c:\inetpub\wwwroot. 

If you install ColdFusion root on a different directory or your wwwroot directory is elsewhere, adjust accordingly. 

• Open c:\CFusionMX7\runtime\servers\coldfusion\SERVER-INF\jrun.xml .
• Find “ProxyService” and verify the value of the “deactivated“ attribute is "false"
• Create a file: c:\CFusionMX7 \runtime\lib\wsconfig\wsconfig.properties
• Edit it as follows:
  1=IIS,1,false,""
  1.srv=localhost,"coldfusion"
  1.cfmx=true,C:/inetpub/wwwroot
  Save the file

 

• Extract files from c:\CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig.jar into a temp directory

Running the jar.exe command from the JRE can extract the contents:

"c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_45"\bin\jar –xf wsconfig.jar

The above command will extract the files to the current directory.

 

• Copy jrunwin32.dll and jrun_iis6.dll from extracted files to cfroot\runtime\lib\wsconfig\.
• Copy jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll from extracted files to cfroot\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1.

• Create the file cfroot\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun_iis6_wildcard.ini. Edit it as follows:  

verbose=false 

serverstore=C:/CFusionMX7/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/jrunserver.store

bootstrap=127.0.0.1:51011

apialloc=false 

ssl=false 

 

Notes: bootstrap port number for ColdFusion 9 is 51800, for ColdFusion 7 and 8 port number is 51011, for ColdFusion 6 the port number is 51010. 

• Create the jrunserver.store file in cf_root\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1. Edit as follows: 

proxyservers=127.0.0.1:51011 

 

Note: 127.0.0.1:51010 for MX 6.1; 127.0.0.1:51011 for MX 7/8; 127.0.0.1:51800 for MX9

 

 

• Under the IIS Management Console, click on your computer name, click on "ISAPI and CGI Restrictions" and add two entries: 

Create an ISAPI Restriction entry for

C:\CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll

 

And

C:\CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig\jrun_iis6.dll.

 

Set permission for both to "allowed".   For the description, you can call it what you like.  Eg. CFMX7 Jrun WildCard and CFMX7 Jrun

 

• Click on your computer name and click on “Handler Mappings” and add one "Wildcard Script Map" with the following parameters:
  Requestpath:  *
  Executable:  C:\CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll

 

• After adding wildcard script map, add script handlers for *.cfm files with following. parameters:

Request Path: *.cfm

Executable:c:\CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig\jrun_iis6.dll

• Similarly add handler for *.cfc files 
• Just to be sure, restart ColdFusion as well as IIS. And you should be all set.

NOTE: For Windows Server 2012, I had issues using the wild card script handler for jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll.  So for Windows Server 2012, I recommend using a standard script handler for jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll, instead.  Remove the wild card script handler if you created it earlier and replace with a script handler for *.cfm.

Request Path: *.cfm
Executable: Executable:  C:\CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll

Jrun_IIS6_Wildcard.dll keeps crashing: On a separate server installation, the jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll kept crashing and CFIDE/Administrator/index.cfm would not run at all.  I discovered a permissions issue by looking at the security log.

Ensure that the anonymous access account (by default IUSR) and application pool process account (SYSTEM) have write access to the CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\logfiles and CFusionMX7\runtime\lib\wsconfig\LogFiles directories. 

During initial configuration if you keep seeing the jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll crash error in the application log, configure the anonymous access account to use the application pool account which should be the local system account.

From IIS -> Click Your Web Site -> Under IIS -> Authentication -> Click Anonymous Authentication -> Under Actions Click Edit -> Select the radio button by Application Pool Identity.

You can set it back to IUSR after the initial CFIDE/Administrator/index.cfm configuration wizard is complete.

 

Configure and Test Your Cold Fusion MX7 Install

1)      Go to IIS Manager, right click your web site and click Manage Website -> Advanced Settings

2)      Change the Application Pool to the CFMX7 application pool you created earlier in step 1.

3)      Navigate to your server’s url.  Eg. http://localhost/cfide/administrator

 

4)      I had to reset the CFMX password.  For some reason, the password I set during install did not work.  I think the installation may not have encrypted my special characters correctly.

 

To reset the password, make a backup of the C:\CFusionMX7\lib\neo-security.xml file.

Locate the admin.security.enabled entry and set the value to false.

 

Restart CFMX Application Services.  Navigate to the /Cfide/administrator/index.cfm page and Click Login without password.

 

From the admin console on the left menu, click Security -> CF Admin Password and reset your password.

Patching ColdFusion MX 7 to MX7.02

 1)      On Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012, the ColdFusion-70-updater-win.exe hangs and will sit there forever during the install process.

 2)      The method I used to update to the latest patch state is as follows:

a.       Install Cold Fusion and all the patches you want on a windows server 2003 system.  

NOTE: To avoid the hassle of changing all the configuration files, ensure that CFroot (the CFusionMX7 directory) and the wwwroot directory are on the same drive letter and directories as they are on the source and target servers.   If not, you’ll have to use a tool like Visual Studio or Dreamweaver to do a mass search and replace of E:\CFusionMX7 to C:\CFusionMX7, where E: is the drive where cfroot is on the win 2003 server and c: is the drive where it is installed on the win 2008/2012 server.

You must also do a search and replace of the directories using the forward slash.

E:/CFusionMX7 to C:/CFusionMX7.  There are a couple config files that used the forward slash instead of the back slash.

 

b.      Once you’ve installed CFMX7 on the Windows 2003 system, you now stop all CFMX7 services on your windows 2008/2012 system.  Set the services to manual start up.  Restart your Windows 2008/2012 system.

c.       From the 2008/2012 server, map a drive to the windows 2003 system.  In our example, the 2003 system will be y:.

d.      From the 2008/2012 system, open up a command prompt using run as administrator.  Run the following commands (adjust parameters as needed)

Robocopy y:\CFusionMX7 c:\CFusionMX7 /e /TEE /w:10 /Log:c:\CFusionMX7Copy.log

Robocopy y:\inetpub\wwwroot\CFIDE c:\inetpub\wwwroot\CFIDE /e /TEE /w:10 /Log:C:\CFIDECopy.log

e.      You can also robocopy other directories, like the wwwroot\cfdocs directory if you installed the cold fusion documentation, as needed.

f.        If your drive letters and directory structure was the same on the win 2003 system, you won’t need to change anything, else.

 

g.       Otherwise, you will have to run a tool to do a mass search and replace to adjust the configuration files in your cfroot directory.
 

h.      Start up the Cold Fusion services and set them back to Automatic.

i.         Log into /CFIDE/Administrator/index.cfm   and Click System Information.  The Patch levels should now be the same.

 

Installing Hot fixes

The Directory browser applet does not seem to work anymore, so you can’t just upload hot fixes using the System Information Upload page. 

Fortunately, you can copy your hot fix .jar file to:

C:\CFusionMX7\lib\updates

Then, restart CfusionMX7 Application Server.

 

Configuring DataSources to use Windows Authentication for SQL Authentication

My new architecture required us to use Windows Authentication for SQL Authentication, as well.

Downlload the jtds-1.2.8.jar file from http://jtds.sourceforge.net/faq.html.
 

1)      ColdFusion Services should be running as the default local System account.

2)      Install the jdbc driver to support windows authentication, as follows:

           a.       Create a C:\CFusionMX7\classpath directory.  Copy the jtds-1.2.8.jar file to this directory.

           b.      NOTE: USE jtds-1.2.8.jar not the latest version (1.3), because the 1.3 version will not work since it was compiled using a newer version of Java than CFMX, and the connection will merely timeout.

           c.       Add C:\CFusionMX7\classpath to  the ColdFusion classpath via CFIDE/Administrator/index.cfm ->  Server Settings -> Java and JVM

3)      Restart Cold Fusion Services.

4)   More information on jtds can be found here:   http://jtds.sourceforge.net/faq.html

5)       Here are the settings for a Cold Fusion JTDS Datasource, using the DataSource Type of Other.

JDBC URL:

jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://vserver:1433/DBNAME;domain=DOMAINNAME;useNTLMv2=true;user=DOMAINUSER;password=[DOMAINUsersPASSWORD]

 

Driver Class:

net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver

Driver name:
jTDS