ColdFusion

Enabling SSL on the ColdFusion 8 built-in web server

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This tutorial assumes default install location for ColdFusion 8 on Windows XP.

The first thing you need to do is to create a keystore. This can be done with the keytool utility. I used the one that is part of ColdFusion 8.

Open a command prompt.

Execute the following command:
cd C:\ColdFusion8\runtime\jre\bin

Create the keystore with this command:
keytool -genkey -dname "cn=127.0.0.1, ou=CF, o=cfchimp, L=Decatur, ST=GA, C=US" -keyalg rsa -keystore mykey

If you have previously configured a keystore you might run into this error:
keytool error: java.lang.Exception: Key pair not generated, alias already exists

If you got the “already exists” error run this command to list the keystores:
keytool -list -v | more

If you got the “already exists” error run this command to delete the keystore:
keytool -delete -alias mykey

If you got the “already exists” error re-run the command to create the keystore.

Enter in a password when prompted (2 times)

Move the keystore file (mykey) to C:\ColdFusion8\runtime\lib\

Edit the config file C:\ColdFusion8\runtime\servers\coldfusion\SERVER-INF\jrun.xml with an xml editor of choice. This file is VERY sensitive so be sure to not screw up the syntax of it. You should probably make a copy of it before you edit it.


<!-- Uncomment this service to use SSL with the JRun Web Server
Note that you MUST create your own keystore before using this service -->
<service class="jrun.servlet.http.SSLService" name="SSLService">
<attribute name="enabled">true </attribute>
<attribute name="interface">* </attribute>
<attribute name="port">9100 </attribute>
<attribute name="keyStore">{jrun.rootdir}/lib/mykey </attribute>
<attribute name="keyStorePassword">mypassword </attribute>
<attribute name="trustStore">{jrun.rootdir}/lib/trustStore </attribute>
<attribute name="socketFactoryName">jrun.servlet.http.JRunSSLServerSocketFactory </attribute>
</service>

Restart the ColdFusion8 application service.

Create a test page in the ColdFusion 8 wwwroot and opening it in a web browser using: https://127.0.0.1:9100/testpage.cfm

You should be good to go.

REFERENCES:
For some keytool commands: http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-support/server_faq/ssl-server-certificate-java.html
Adobe instructions: http://www.adobe.com/support/coldfusion/using/ssl_with_cf_web_server/ssl_with_cf_web_server03.html

Coldfusion Administrator (CFAdmin) Improperly Framed

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Has anyone ever logged into the Colfusion Administrator to find it improperly framed? Once you click a link in the outermost frame the problem goes away. Initially, it looks like this:

Coldfusion Administrator (CFAdmin) Improperly Framed

If you have seen this (and know how to fix it) PLEASE let me know. It has looked like this on our server at work since CF6 and I have finally grown weary of it.

Thanks!

CFGRID DateFormat

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For some reason when you have a datetime field in a cfgrid column it displays in a long format like this: Nov 17 2006 01:00:00

Fig 1 (Below) A date displayed in cfgrid

CFGRID DateFormat Before

If we work a little SQL magic (using “CONVERT”) in the cfquery though we can do the formatting we want, which is: 11/17/2006. Refer to the “styles” listed in Figure 3 to see what formatting is available.

Coldfusion Query:

SELECT note_id,note_text,
CONVERT(varchar,note_date,101) as note_date
FROM tbl_notes
ORDER BY note_date

Fig 2 (Below) A date displayed in cfgrid after using CONVERT in cfquery

CFGRID DateFormat After

Fig 3 (Below) A helpful list of “styles” to use with the SQL CONVERT function
Style ID Style Type
0 or 100 mon dd yyyy hh:miAM (or PM)
101 mm/dd/yy
102 yy.mm.dd
103 dd/mm/yy
104 dd.mm.yy
105 dd-mm-yy
106 dd mon yy
107 Mon dd, yy
108 hh:mm:ss
9 or 109 mon dd yyyy hh:mi:ss:mmmAM (or PM)
110 mm-dd-yy
111 yy/mm/dd
112 yymmdd
13 or 113 dd mon yyyy hh:mm:ss:mmm(24h)
114 hh:mi:ss:mmm(24h)
20 or 120 yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss(24h)
21 or 121 yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss.mmm(24h)
126 yyyy-mm-dd Thh:mm:ss.mmm(no spaces)
130 dd mon yyyy hh:mi:ss:mmmAM
131 dd/mm/yy hh:mi:ss:mmmAM

I just took a huge cfdump

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cfdump top

Har har. Scatological humor and programming.

So I learned something today that I didn’t know even though I have been using Coldfusion for years. It’s kind of embarrassing actually. Everyone has used cfdump a million times to debug query output. Sometimes a query might return many records though and you don’t really need to see them all. Apparently there is a “top” attribute you can use to limit the number of rows returned. Nice.