How to Configure Apache to GZip Your Components

Wednesday, 3rd February 2010 in Development by Simon | No comments

Compressing your Web components will help speed up your Website. The majority of your visitors will benefit as most all Web browsers support GZip compression. You’ll want to compress all text, which includes HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, JSON, etc.

Apache 2.x uses mod_deflate. Much like setting expires headers, this will save you bandwidth and server load, because it allows output from your server to be compressed before being sent to the client over the network.

The deflate module is not compiled by default and must be enabled in the Apache httpd.conf file. Make sure the following is present and uncommented (remove preceding the #):

LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so

To set GZip compression, simply add the following to the section of your Apache vhost configuration:

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

Alternatively you can add it to your htaccess file in an <IfModule mod_deflate.c></IfModule> block.

All you really need is the first line. The BrowserMatch lines are there to handle issues with older browsers such as Internet Explorer 5.

You can read all about GZip by reading Yahoo!’s Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site guide.

Alternatively, read the Apache mod_deflate documentation.

How to Set an Expires Header in Apache

Wednesday, 3rd February 2010 in Development by Simon | 1 comment

Setting an Expires (or Cache-Control) header in Apache will help speed up your website. I’m running Apache 2.x, and define an expires header for all of the site’s static assets (images, stylesheets, and scripts).

In Apache, mod_expires is a module that allows you to set a given period of time to live for web pages and other objects served from web pages. The idea is to inform web browsers how often they should reload objects from the server. This will save you bandwidth and server load, because clients who follow the header will reload objects less frequently.

The expires module is not compiled by default and must be enabled in the Apache httpd.conf file. Make sure the following is present and uncommented (remove preceding the #):

LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so

To set an expires header, simply add the following to the <VirtualHost> section of your Apache vhost configuration:

ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 months"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 months"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 months"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 months"
ExpiresByType image/vnd.microsoft.icon "access plus 1 months"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 months"
ExpiresByType image/ico "access plus 1 months"
ExpiresByType application/javascript “now plus 1 months”
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript “now plus 1 months”
ExpiresByType text/javascript “now plus 1 months”
ExpiresByType text/css “now plus 1 months”
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 days"

Alternatively you can add it to your htaccess file in an <IfModule mod_expires.c></IfModule> block.

If you need to change the length of time a type expires, simply change access plus 1 months to the appropriate length of time, e.g. access plus 1 days, access plus 365 days etc. The time length is by default specified in seconds, but you may also use any of these keys: years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds.

You can read all about expires headers by reading Yahoo!’s Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site guide.

Alternatively, read the Apache mod_expires documentation.

Using Ant with Eclipse

Tuesday, 6th January 2009 in Development by Simon | 5 comments

If you’re currently not using Eclipse as your development tool of choice, you certainly should be! Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle.

Eclipse started out as a Java IDE and has continually grown from there. Plugins now include, amongst a plethora of others, the venerable Aptana, CFEclipse, SQL Explorer, Subclipse and, more recently, the Adobe-developed Flex Builder and ColdFusion-equivalent codenamed Bolt.

Apache Ant is a software tool for automating software build processes. It is implemented using the Java language, requires the Java platform, and was originally developed to automate the build of Java projects. However, since Ant was created as a simple, platform-independent tool, it can really be used to automate the build of anything you choose.

Ant uses XML to describe the build process and its dependencies, using a file commonly called build.xml. Using this file, Ant makes it trivial to integrate unit testing frameworks with the build process and has made it easy for web developers to adopt test-driven development, and even Extreme Programming.

Fortunately for us, if you download and run Eclipse, you already have Ant installed and so do not have any complex configuration to concern yourself with; well, at least initially.

Setting Up Eclipse

For the most part, Eclipse has all you need to get up and running with Ant pre-installed. However, most projects will include a release target which uses FTP to upload the files to a live server. The FTP ant task requires some extra libraries (.jar files):

commons-net-*.jar
jakarta-oro-*.jar

(The library files can be downloaded from here).

Copy the files into the ant lib folder of your Eclipse install. The folder is commonly located here:

C:\Program Files\Eclipse\plugins\org.apache.ant_*\lib

(The asterix * refers to the Ant version).

Next, go to Window > Preferences and select Ant > Runtime. In the Classpath tab, select Ant Home Entries, click Add External JARs… and select the 2 files you copied to the ant lib folder.

A Typical Ant Project Setup

A project with ant build scripts should have the following within the repository:

  • build.xml (the actual ant build script)
  • build.properties.template (a template for individual build.properties files)
  • an optional top level lib folder (containing jar files for external ant tasks)

Examples of the build.xml and build.properties.template files can be downloaded from here.

Create Your Own build.properties File

Make a copy of the build.properties.template file (name it build.properties) and set the values to fit your local setup (in most cases, the only property you may want to change is deploy.dir.local which is the path to the site on your local machine).

This file should never be committed to the repository (the repository should be set to ignore it anyway).

Basic Build Tasks

The build file should have a deploy.local task. This task builds the project and copies it to your local webserver (the path to the web server folder will be defined in the build.properties file).

Most projects should also have a deploy.dev task to copy the latest work to the dev server so that other people can view it.

Setting Up an Automatic Build

To make things easy, you can set deploy.local to run every time you save a file. This is called an automatic build.

The process for setting up automatic build is quite convoluted. I’m not sure why but this is the best way I’ve found to make it work.

Step 1: Add the build file to your ant view

Click the add button and select the build.xml file from the project. You can also drag the build.xml file onto the ant view (To add the ant view to your perpective, go to Window > Show View > Other…)

Step 2: Run as Ant Build

In your ant view, right click the newly added build file and select Run As > Ant Build… In the dialog window, select the ‘Hide internal targets not selected for execution’ option in the Targets tab. You can rename the builder in the box at the top of the window if you wish (I usually remove the trailing ‘build.xml’. Click Apply and Close.

Step 3: Setup automatic build

Right click on the project, select Properties, then Builders. Click Import. Before closing the screen, highlight the imported build and select edit. Go to the Targets tab select clean for ‘After a clean’ and deploy.local for ‘Auto build’. Apply the changes and close.

Step 4: Enable Auto Build

Go to Project > Build Automatically

Acknowledgment: Thanks should go to Martin Laine for his help and guidance which resulted in this article.

Enabling Search Engine Safe URLs with Apache and htaccess

Monday, 8th December 2008 in Development, Search by Simon | 2 comments

An increasingly popular technique among websites and in particular, blogs, is the idea of making URLs search engine friendly, or safe, on the premise that doing so will help search engine optimisation. By removing the obscure query string element of a URL and replacing it with keyword rich alternatives, not only makes it more readable for a human being, but also the venerable robots that allow our page content to be found in the first place.

For example, the following is WordPress’ default URL configuration for a post:

http://www.domain.com/?p=1635

However, buy using a URL-rewriting available in the Apache webserver, we can achieve a far better result, such as the following:

http://www.domain.com/search-engine-safe-urls

NB. It is also possible to achieve a similar result with an ISAPI rewrite for Microsoft’s IIS webserver, but this topic will not be included in this post.

To get your website working with SES URLs you need to enable both the mod_rewite module and AllowOverride directive in the Apache configuration file.

Uncomment (remove #) from the following to enable the re-write rule:

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Change the AllowOverride directive from none to all

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride all
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
</Directory>
 
<Directory "C:/WebRoot">
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
 
    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride All
 
    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

On Apache webservers, .htaccess (hypertext access) is the default name of directory-level configuration files. An .htaccess file is placed in a particular directory, and the directives in the .htaccess file apply to that directory, and all its subdirectories. It provides the ability to customize configuration for requests to the particular directory. In our case, enabling search engine safe (SES) URLs.

By setting the AllowOverride directive to All in effect defers configuration settings to the .htaccess file.

An example .htaccess file could include the following code to rewrite the URLs:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L,QSA]

Search engine friendly URLs are implemented with Rewrite engines. The rewrite engine modifies the URL based upon a number of rewrite conditions and rules.

The RewriteBase directive explicitly sets the base URL for per-directory rewrites. The RewriteCond directive defines a rule condition, so in this case handling missing files or directories. Finally, the RewriteRule directive is the real rewriting workhorse. In this example, we’re getting everything in the URI — i.e. not including the protocol (HTTP/S) and domain name — based upon a regular expression. This is then appended to the default file reference — index.php — as a back reference. The [L,QSA] refers to the rule being the last rule and append any query string parameters to the default file. It is important to note that this is all done on the server side, the user will never see the website address changing in the browser’s address bar. Furthermore, simply transposing the index.php filename with your default file name — e.g. index.cfm, default.aspx — will have the same result. Indeed, the above rewrite rules are becoming a de-facto standard for web applications.

To fully understand mod_rewrite rules above, look at the Apache mod_rewrite documentation.

Once you have your SES functionality in place on the webserver, it is then the responsibility of your application framework to understand the URL construction and handle it accordingly. Fortunately, frameworks such as ColdBox and Fusebox for ColdFusion, Zend and Symfony for PHP, all contain functionality to do this, but that is the subject of an entirely different post.

Users of web applications prefer short, neat URLs to raw query string parameters. A concise URL is easy to remember, and less time-consuming to type in. If the URL can be made to relate clearly to the content of the page, then errors are not only less likely to happen, but our good friends the search engine robots are able to draw a stronger assumption of the pages’ relevance and content.

Apache Installation – Problems with Skype

Thursday, 21st February 2008 in Development, Technology by Simon | 2 comments

When trying to install the latest version of Apache on my development machine, I was presented with the following error at the end of the installation:

Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally pemitted. 
make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to openlogs
Note the errors or messages above, and press the < ESC > key to exit.

Initially I thought it was a problem associated with Windows Vista (yes my development machine is a Vista PC!) and the previously installed IIS. However, after a lot of deliberating and Google searches, it appears that Skype was the culprit. Skype listens on port 80 and 443 for incoming requests. So to solve the problem I simply closed down Skype and re-installed Apache. As Apache was setup as a Windows service, no conflicts subsequently arise with Skype as Apache will start using the ports before Skype.

There is a setting in Skype under Tools > Options > Advanced > Connection called “Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections”. This is checked by default. Uncheck this to prevent conflicts with Apache.

Skype Advanced Connection Options

The Key Point: Stop Skype before installing Apache.

PHP.ini Permission Problems on Windows Vista

Sunday, 17th February 2008 in Development by Simon | 4 comments

Installing PHP is a relatively simple task one would think. Indeed it is simple, but configuring the php.ini isn’t; at least not so on Windows Vista! It is infuriating when such a relatively simple task is made inordinately complicated because of the nuances of Vista permissions. What started out as a 5 minute task took a significant number of hours searching for a suitable answer on Google, and not only by myself.

The task I was trying to achieve was the installation of development versions of WordPress, Drupal, MediaWiki and Moodle, all of which would require a MySQL database. Trying to load the MySQL extension should have been a simple case of uncommenting the line in the php.ini and restarting the Apache service. With Vista, this was certainly not the case.

I set up a very simple page detailing the php configuration in an index.php file:

< ?php phpinfo(); ?>

This showed me the default configuration path of my php.ini and extensions directory, amongst a whole host of other information.

In both cases the paths were incorrect. First and foremost the configuration file path stated C:\Windows when in fact I had installed it in the root (C:\PHP5). So, although I was amending the php.ini file with the correct detail, Vista was using the default values. If there is no php.ini file in Windows, then you’ll continue banging your head against a brick wall.

The problems didn’t stop there. Moving the php.ini file to the Windows directory under Vista isn’t a simple copy and paste task. You need to be administrator. But Vista’s administrator priviledges are more pseudo than actual! In order to amend and save the php.ini file in the Windows directory, you must run Notepad as administrator and save the file as such. Voila! Everything then works. The phpinfo() function returned the correct installation detail and I could continue with the job I was meant to be doing.

PS. Thanks to Rob Douglas for his help.

Configuring PHP with Apache on Windows Vista

Friday, 15th February 2008 in Development by Simon | 46 comments

Pre-requisites:

  1. Follow my instructions on installing Apache on Windows Vista
  2. And then follow my instructions on installing PHP on Windows Vista

Installing PHP with Apache on Windows Vista is a relatively simple task until you try an configure the settings in php.ini. Problems can occur and stem from the fact that when you install PHP and edit the php.ini file, you need to not only be logged in as Administrator, but run the installer and Notepad text editor as Administrator. The php.ini file also needs to be located in the Windows directory.

Below is an outline of the steps to get your PHP installation running and configured correctly.

  1. Run Notepad as Administrator. Go to All Programs > Accessories Right-click “Notepad” and select “Run as Administrator”. Open the php.ini file, in my case: 
    C:\PHP5\php.ini
  2. Edit the php.ini file as necessary, e.g.: 
    extension_dir = "C:\PHP5\ext"
upload_max_filesize = 16M
upload_tmp_dir = "C:\PHP5\upload"
session.save_path = "C:\PHP5\session"
  3. Enable the extensions you need by deleting the semi-colon at the beginning of the line. For example, you will commonly need the following MySQL extensions: 
    extension = php_mysql.dll
extension = php_mysqli.dll
  4. Save the edited php.ini file into your Windows directory. This is very important as Vista will not read the changes but will refer to the default settings.
  5. Check that the PHP directory has been added to your computers “Environment Variables”. Click Start, right-click on Computer, select Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables. Click on PATH and select Edit. If the PHP path is there, in my case “C:\PHP5\”, all is well, otherwise add the PHP path.
    • System Properties:

      Vista System Properties

    • Environmental Variables

      Vista Environment Variables

    • Edit Environmental Variable – PATH

      Vista Edit Environmental Variable PATH

  6. Open your Apache configuration file (httpd.conf). Ensure the following lines are present (at the bottom of the file): 
    LoadModule php5_module "C:\PHP5\php5apache2_2.dll"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AcceptPathInfo on
PHPIniDir "C:\Windows"

    If there are additional LoadModule lines, remove them, leaving only the one that relates to your version of Apache.

  7. Find the DirectoryIndex in the Apache config and append index.php, e.g.: 
    <ifmodule dir_module>
	DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
</ifmodule>
  8. Restart the Apache service.
  9. Create a index.php file in your webroot and add the following lines: 
    < ?php phpinfo(); ?>
  10. Navigate to the file (e.g. http://localhost/index.php) and you will be presented with all the PHP and server settings. You’re now good to go.

Installing PHP with Apache on Windows Vista

Thursday, 14th February 2008 in Development by Simon | 3 comments

  1. Download the current version of PHP from http://www.php.net/downloads.php. Get the Windows installer (in my case version 5.2.5).
  2. Uninstall any previous versions of PHP. Delete any extraneous remaining directories.
  3. Disable antivirus and firewall software.
  4. Disable Windows Defender.
  5. Disable User Account Control (UAC).
  6. Use the command prompt to manually run the PHP installer. Go to All Programs > Accessories Right-click “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.

    Browse to the location of the PHP install file e.g.:

    C:\Users\Simon\Desktop\
  7. In the command prompt type:

    C:\Users\Simon\Desktop\msiexec /i php-5.2.5-win32-installer.msi

    And hit the [Enter] button.

  8. The installer should start and you should see the screenshot below. Click “Next”.

    PHP Install - Step 1

  9. Read and accept the terms of the license agreement and click “Next”.

    PHP Install - Step 2

  10. Choose your install folder and click “Next”.

    PHP Install - Step 3

  11. Choose the web server you wish to setup. In my case I will be using Apache 2.2.x. Click “Next”.

    PHP Install - Step 4

  12. Browse to the Apache Configuration Directory. In my case this is:

    C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\

    Click “Next”.

    PHP Install - Step 5

  13. Choose the items to install. In my case I have chosen to install all items. Click “Next”.

    PHP Install - Step 6

  14. PHP is now ready to install.

    PHP Install - Step 7

  15. The installation is now complete. The next task is to configure PHP.

    PHP Install - Step 8

Configuring ColdFusion 8 with Apache

Friday, 16th November 2007 in Development by Simon | 4 comments

After installing ColdFusion 8 and Apache successfully you may still see an “HTTP 500 Internal Server Error” when navigating to a ColdFusion page. All is not lost, you simply need to configure, or check the configuration of Apache.

Apache requires very little post installation modification, but it is always good practice to check the httpd.conf file to ensure that the ColdFusion “install” scripts did what they were supposed to do.

If you haven’t confirmed that Apache is running, open your browser and point it to http://localhost/ (unless you specified a real URL during installation). You should see the Apache test page. If you see an error, review the Apache installation steps to make sure you followed all the steps correctly, and/or check your log files for more detailed errors.

Now we know Apache is running, but how about ColdFusion? Point your browser to the ColdFusion Administrator found commonly at http://localhost/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm and see what happens. One of three possible failures could occur:

  1. Your browser prompts you to save the .cfm file to your computer. There a couple of possible resolutions to this. Firstly restart the Apache service. If this does not resolve the issue you will need to check the httpd.conf file to ensure that the ColdFusion module is being loaded. The file can typically be found in the C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\ directory.
    Make sure that the DirectoryIndex has a reference to the index.cfm file (i.e. the default file):Apache dir_module DeclarationEnsure that the LoadModule jrun_module "C:/ColdFusion8/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/mod_jrun22.so" is also present:

    Apache JRun Settings

    If you need to edit this file, restart the Apache service after you have saved the changes.

  2. You get a message that the CFIDE folder cannot be found. This is more likely to be a problem with where you placed the ColdFusion application during install. The default location is in the Apache directory (C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs), so check in the http.conf file to ensure the DocumentRoot is pointing correctly. Alternatively, copy this folder to your localhost webroot (e.g. C:\WebRoot) ensuring that the DocumentRoot points to your webroot (see the yellow box in the second screen-shot).
  3. You get another message which probably means that you need to reinstall ColdFusion, and/or Apache!

And that is it, you can start using ColdFusion and developing applications.

Installing ColdFusion 8 on Vista

Monday, 12th November 2007 in Development by Simon | 12 comments

A few months ago I posted an article on Installing Apache on Vista, and it proved to be extremely popular. It appears that I was not the only one who found it a non trivial matter.

Now it is the turn of ColdFusion 8. ColdFusion 8 as we well know is the latest and greatest incarnation of the ColdFusion platform from Adobe. It has a lot of great new features such as cfimage, cfzip, cfexchange, some contentious features such as cfthread and cfinterface, and some not-so-necessarily-cool new “Web 2.0″ features such as cffeed and cfajax. But since this article isn’t about any of these, I better stick to the topic.

Like my article on installing Apache, installing ColdFusion on Vista is again not a trivial matter and involves only what can colloquially described as a “shed load of steps”. I’m probably being a little harsh towards ColdFusion as many of the problems I encountered were more closely related to Apache than ColdFusion.

NB: This article will assume that you have pre-installed Apache (although you could use IIS if so compelled), turned off Vista’s User Account Control (UAC), disabled any firewalls you have installed and finally, but most importantly, you have downloaded ColdFusion from the Adobe website.

Let us begin.

  1. Find where you downloaded your copy of the ColdFusion Installer. Right-click on the executable file and specify to “Run as Administrator”. The installer should start and you should see the screenshot below. Select “English”, or which ever your language preference is, and Click “OK”.

    1. ColdFusion Installer

  2. The ColdFusion Installation progress screen may or may not be briefly displayed.

    2. ColdFusion Installation Progress

  3. The Introduction screen will be displayed. Click “Next”.

    3. Introduction Screen

  4. The License Agreement screen will then be displayed. Agree to the “I accept the terms of the License Agreement” and Click “Next”.

    4. License Agreement

  5. The Install Type screen is then displayed. You don’t need to enter a serial number unless you are installing this into a production environment. Check “Developer Edition” and Click “Next”.

    5. Install Type

  6. The Installer Configuration screen should be displayed. Since we already have Apache 2.x installed as our web server (if you want to use IIS, you will need to skip steps 11.1 and 11.2), check “Server configuration” and Click “Next”.

    6. Installer Configuration

  7. The Sub-component Installation screen should be displayed. This is one of the noticeable changes from version 7 to version 8 of ColdFusion. Hovering your mouse over each sub-component will describe in more detail what each sub-component does. If you plan to integrate .NET (especially with WebServices) or carry out Flex development then make sure that the “.NET Integration Services” and “LiveCycle Data Services” items are checked. For simplicities sake, check everything and Click “Next”.

    7. Sub-component Installation

  8. The Select Installation Directory screen should be displayed. The default directory for a Serverconfiguration will be “C:\ColdFusion8″ on a Windows machine. Click “Next” to continue.

    8. Select Installation Directory

  9. As you have chosen to install LiveCycle Data Services, you will need to agree to a further Licence Agreement screen. Click “Next”.

    9. Licence Agreement (LiveCycle Data Services)

  10. The Adobe Livecycle Data Services ES Installation screen is displayed. You will need to enter a serial number into this screen for production environments. Since I am going to assume a development environment, simply click “Next”.

    10. Adobe Livecycle Data Services ES Installation

  11. The Configure Web Servers / Websites screen should be displayed. This is the point where we want to connect ColdFusion with Apache. By default “Configure web server connector for ColdFusion” is checked. We need to add Apache so Click “Add”.

    11. Configure Web Servers / Websites

    1. The Add Web Server Configuration screen is displayed, choose Apache from the drop-down.
    2. Add the relevant Apache directory paths, e.g.:

      11-2. Add Web Server Configuration (Directory Paths)

      1. The Configuration Directory C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf
      2. The Server Binary Directory C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\bin\httpd.exe
  12. The Review Configured Web Server screen is then displayed. If all the settings are correct, click “Next”.

    12. Review Configured Web Server

  13. The Choose Adobe ColdFusion 8 Administrator Location screen should be displayed. Since we are using Apache for our web server then the default Directory should be pointing to C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs. You can alternatively point this to C:\WebRoot or wherever you have set up your web project files. Select “Next”.

    13. Choose Adobe ColdFusion 8 Administrator Location

  14. The Adminstrator Password screen is then displayed, prompting for a password. Enter one, remember it (!!) and click “Next”.

    14. Adminstrator Password

  15. The Enable RDS & Password screen is then displayed. If you want to use this, check the box and provide an additional password. Don’t use RDS in a production environment. Click “Next”.

    15. Enable RDS & Password

  16. The Pre-Installation Summary screen is then displayed, detailing your configuration. This is your last chance to go back and make changes. If everything is OK, click “Install”.

    16. Pre-Installation Summary

  17. The Installing Adobe ColdFusion 8 screen is then displayed, showing a host of marketing messages.

    17. Installing Adobe ColdFusion 8

  18. The Please Wait screen is displayed, and be prepared to wait!

    18. Please Wait

  19. The Installation Complete screen is finally displayed and indeed the installation is complete. Now for the configuration! Click “Done”.

    19. Installation Complete

  20. Configuration and Settings Migration Wizard. Open up a browser and enter the url http://localhost/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm to begin the ColdFusion 8 Configuration and Settings Migration Wizard. Enter your password and Click “Login”.

    20. Configuration and Settings Migration Wizard

  21. ColdFusion will now begin Configuring Server, which could take any number of minutes to complete.

    21. Configuring Server

  22. Once the Configuration Complete is displayed, you can login to the ColdFusion Administrator and start working, or playing, with the new interface, settings and Server Monitor.

    22. Configuration Complete

So, that only 22 steps! That may be the longest installation process you may go through, but the power now at your finger tips to produce hugely interactive websites is a compelling reason why to choose this version of ColdFusion, or indeed ColdFusion over other products.

« Older entries