What’s New in CF 8 Admin

MDCFUG 8/14/2007

Ajay SathuluriSr. Web and Database EngineerTeraTech Inc.

About MeAbout Me

• About Me• Certified ColdFusion MX Developer• Microsoft Certified Solution Developer• 8+ years with ColdFusion• Also work with SQL, JavaScript, HTML,

Access, VB, Oracle• On site and custom development• Fusebox and Process Methodology

What this presentation will coverWhat this presentation will cover

• Walkthrough of the CF Administrator– Most settings– Datasources– Debugging– Server Monitor (all new!)– Security, Sandbox security

New Settings: Settings pageNew Settings: Settings page

• Per-Application Settings: globally enable/disable– You can set mappings, custom tag paths for each application.– Set in Application.cfc , not application.cfm– Mappings:

• <cfset This.mappings[“/demo”] = “C:\inetpub\commondemo”>– Custom tag paths: check this list first before that in the CF Administrator

• <cfset This.customtagpaths = “c:\mapped1,c:\inetpub\commondemo”>• Disable CFC Type Check

– New; default is unchecked (typecheck not disabled), like previously– Pass a CFC instance to a function as an argument, specify type (CF

path to that component)– With CFC type check, CF tries to enforce that the passed-in object is an

instance of that CFC – first has to find the CFC file! – Caused performance issues due to file accesses each time function is

called– Use in production

• (Note about whitespace management setting: Whitespace reduction is much better in CF8)

New Settings: Settings page (2)New Settings: Settings page (2)

• Disable access to internal ColdFusion Java components– Eg: coldfusion.runtime.* – these classes give you access to the

whole server!– However, even if you disable here, there may be Java system

classes you will still have access to– (Demo)

• Watch configuration files for changes– CF uses XML files for configuration– Reloads XML if change on disk– Mainly for Websphere ND vertical cluster, which share files– Most people don’t need, if there will be only one set of files per

instance.

Settings: Request TuningSettings: Request Tuning• New page• Limits on simultaneous requests (how many incoming requests of

each type can run at once)• Limits the following, separately:

– Flash Remoting requests– Web Service requests– CFC function requests (direct HTTP requests to the

component’s method• http://localhost/my.cfc?method=hello• Not called as webservices; Used to return datasets as

WDDX, or output text (can be XML, HTML or JS, even) to browser or AJAX client

• This does not affect invocation of CFC methods from within CFML

• (short demo)

Settings: Request Tuning, 2Settings: Request Tuning, 2

• Maximum simultaneous Report threads – not new; moved here from Settings page

• (New CFThread) The maximum number of threads created by CFTHREAD that will be run concurrently. – Threads created by CFTHREAD in excess of this are

queued.

Settings: Request Tuning, 3Settings: Request Tuning, 3

• Timeout requests waiting in queue, after X seconds of waiting– Only the max number of simultaneous Template

requests can run at once; all others sit in the queue– Running requests have their own timeout– If another request sits in the queue for more than X

seconds, it will timeout, and run the specified HTML template (specified in the Request Queue Timeout Page), or else a generic “500 Request Timeout” message. (This can be only HTML; will not be processed by CF)

– This value should be at least as long as the Request Timeout setting

Settings: Request Tuning, 3Settings: Request Tuning, 3

• JRun Master Request limits– For underlying J2EE engine for this instance

of ColdFusion– Max number of running JRun threads– Max number of Queued JRun threads

Settings: MailSettings: Mail

• New: if SMTP server requires authentication, can set username and password as default here. Otherwise, requires username and password in CFMAIL tag

• Also can allow CFMAIL to use SSL and TLS to the mail server (authentication, security)– CFMail: new attributes useSSL, useTLS

Data & Services: Data SourcesData & Services: Data Sources

• New datasource drivers:– Apache Derby embedded database library, and datasources

• Derby support comes from JAR libraries; built-in to Java apps, including CF• Embedded: create

– MySQL 4/5 – PostgreSQL

• Log Database Activity – For all Enterprise DB drivers– specify logfile and path– Enable ONLY for temporary debugging if necessary– Useful for debugging; gives a lot of detailed sql info– However: gives a LOT of detailed info, including sql password in plain

text. Heavy DB use will result in huge file.• Validation Query

– Called when a connection from the pool is resued.– Used to verify, but don’t keep it there

Data & Services: Verity K2Data & Services: Verity K2

• If using external verity, can specify Advanced Settings, including username+password

Debugging and Logging: Debug Output SettingsDebugging and Logging: Debug Output Settings

• Debug Output Page– Renamed from “Debugging Settings” due to the new

Debugger, and new “Debugger Settings” page. – 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)

– Renamed “Enable Debugging” option to “Enable Request Debugging Output”, to distinguish from the new Debugger and AJAX debugging

Debugging and LoggingDebugging and Logging

• New Debugger plugin for Eclipse; allows for interactive debugging

• New Debugger Settings Page– Enable, Port, Max simultaneous sessions

• Scheduled Tasks Page– New Action: Pause/Resume a scheduled task (actions: Run

Now, Pause/Resume, Edit, Delete)– Enable/disable, instead of changing time setting– Make sure you Resume task after pause, if you want it to keep

the next scheduled time

• Code Analyzer Page– Added CF8 tags and functions

SecuritySecurity

• New - User Manager

• Add and manage users.

• Users can be granted access to CFAdmin roles and sandboxes, and specific pages of the CF Administrator– (Demo)

Server MonitorServer Monitor

• Server Monitor lets you track activities on a ColdFusion Server.

• You can identify information about the – Server, – Requests– Queries,– Memory Usage– Errors

• You can start and stop collecting server information and take snapshots of the server.

Server Monitor 2 - Start MonitoringServer Monitor 2 - Start Monitoring

• Information about all requests, including active requests, slowest requests, active sessions, cumulative server usage, highest hit counts, template cache status, request throttle data, requests that timed out, requests with errors, and server alerts.

• The Server Monitor does not gather information for requests that are excluded on the Filter Settings page.

Server Monitor 3 - Start ProfilingServer Monitor 3 - Start Profiling

• Tag and function timing information for the Slowest Requests report; the CFML stack trace for the Active Requests report; information about active queries, slowest queries, cached queries, and query cache status; database pool status; and the most frequently run queries.

• This information gathering lets you find bottlenecks in your application.

Server Monitor 4 - Start ProfilingServer Monitor 4 - Start Profiling

• You can view details about each request that is slow or consumes a lot of memory

• You can determine which tags and functions cause the request to run slowly and which variables consume the most memory.

• You can use this information on both development and production servers.

• To gather the profiling information, turn on monitoring, profiling, and, if needed, memory tracking.

Server Monitor 5 - Start Memory TrackingServer Monitor 5 - Start Memory Tracking

• Information about memory consumption, including overall memory usage, the queries and sessions that use the most memory, the memory usage of all application and server scopes, and profiling information on the largest variables on the Requests by Memory Usage report, if profiling is enabled.

Server Monitor 6 - Start Memory TrackingServer Monitor 6 - Start Memory Tracking

• You must enable profiling to view query-related reports;

• You must enable profiling and memory tracking to view the Queries by Memory Usage report.

Server Monitor OverheadServer Monitor Overhead

• According to Adobe, starting Monitoring and Profiling causes "minimal" overhead; but Memory Tracking can be significant.

• Alerts don't seem to require any of these to be started, unless you tell it to Dump Snapshot.

Newer JVMs can be installed for use with CF8Newer JVMs can be installed for use with CF8• 1.6 JVMs

– Fully supported in CF8– Speed, many other improvements– Not at all supported for CF7

• 1.5 JVMs– Fully supported in CF8– Breaks some features of CFMX and CF7 (CFLDAP, Axis, Verity), but may work

with the rest of CF7– May provide significantly better performance!– YMMV; Be careful! (take backup of config files before any changes)

• 1.4 JVMs– Included with CF7.0 (original): 1.4.2_05– Included with CF7.0.2: 1.4.2_09– Latest supported version is 1.4.2_11– Latest available version is 1.4.2_13

ReferencesReferences

• Livedocs– http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/help.html?content=Part_2_Config_Admin_1

.html– Configuring and Administering ColdFusion– http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/help.html?

content=Part_2_Config_Admin_1.html#1028407– Application.cfc

http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/appFramework_07.html#1191449– Server Monitoring– http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/monitoring_pt1.html– http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/index.cfm/2007/7/25/Server-Monitor-Alerts-in-ColdFusion-8– http://carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2007/6/15/

cf8_hiddengem_monitoring_without_enabling_monitoring• Quickdocs:

– http://cfquickdocs.com/• Derby

– http://db.apache.org/derby/#What+is+Apache+Derby%3F• Google search

– “site:livedocs.adobe.com ColdFusion 8 keywords”

??