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Sending HTTP headers in a CFHTTP request? Name them correctly

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
If you ever try to use CFHTTPPARAM (inside a CFHTTP) to set HTTP headers for the request you're calling, be aware that you need to be careful to specify the name of the headers as they're known in the HTTP specification. Don't be misled by what you see in a CFML dump of the CGI scope.

(This is a reprisal and update of an old blog entry I'd done back in 2003, on a blog site that will soon no longer exist. I'll be reprising a few such blog entries in coming days/weeks, to keep them around for posterity [and to save some having to dig for them in the archive.org site] since often the info offered then may be just as valuable now. I hope that in time these new versions would come up if people do searches that would have found the old entry.)

So, about these http headers, while CFML exposes them in a dump of the CGI scope, such as the user-agent field which shows up as cgi.http_user_agent, the issue is that you would not use that name, nor even "user_agent", when specifying it in a CFHTTPPARAM. The proper way to pass the user agent in a CFHTTPPARAM would be as follows:

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Applying CF security hotfixes: do it from oldest to newest (depending!)

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
If you may be applying several security hotfixes to a new implementation of CF (or one where none have been applied before), you may wonder if there's any significance to applying them in either chronological order (newest to oldest, or oldest to newest). The technotes don't really clarify this.

Update: Great news. It turns out that just days before I wrote this entry in late 2011, Adobe had in fact addressed and resolved this problem (quietly, I'd say) by making security fixes written from Dec 2011 (apsb11-29) on now have 2 sets of steps, one for if you HAD applied the security hotfix previous to it, and one for if you HAD NOT. And this has proven to be the case for the next few, as I write this update in late 2012. So we can now consider them effectively "cumulative", for those from Dec 2011, on. You need only focus on the latest, and follow either of its 2 provided sets of steps.

That said, I'm not 100% sure if all those from Dec 2011 include all ones prior to that. Has anyone tested things to know?

I'll leave the rest of the note below here for posterity, but stricken out.

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CF911: Are you finding performance problems with CFDOCUMENT? Aware of the important LOCALURL attr.?

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
This is something that I find nearly no one has talked about, as a problem and solution. Did you know that by default, a single request doing a CFDOCUMENT may cause CF to execute several additional requests, each doing a CFHTTP to grab any images on the page? even if the images could be found locally on the server? This can be quite tragic.

The good news is that the problem can be solved using the simple LOCALURL attribute. The bad news is that you have to do it at all, and that if you don't do it, it can have such unfortunate and unexpected impact. (And just as bad, again, is that hardly anyone has talked about it.) This entry will elaborate on the issue (and a couple of other possible CFDocument performance issues, as a bonus.)

I've been meaning to write about the importance of this problem and solution (the LocalURL attribute) for a long time (it came out in CF8). Often when I'm helping people with CF troubleshooting problems, whether on mailing lists or in my consulting services, I've been able to show that long-running requests (or an unexpectedly excessive number of requests) were sometimes due to this very problem.

Basics of the LocalURL attribute

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CF911: Have you updated your ColdFusion JVM to _24 yet? Important security fix for CF 8/9

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
This isn't new info, but you may have missed it. If you're running CF 8 or 9, did you know you can and should update the JVM that came with it? And that you have Adobe's blessing to do this update? This is because of a serious bug in the JVM that is not fixed until 1.6.0_24.

Both CF 9.0 and 9.01 run on older JVMs (and therefore need this update). And are you on CF8? You're not left out: Adobe even has confirmed this update can be applied to CF 8 and 8.01, too!

Note: if you are finding this blog post because you're searching the web for help on updating the JVM that underlies ColdFusion, note that this is a very old post (2011) about one specific JVM version. Instead, for a more general discussion of updating the JVM, and especially about solving and preventing common problems when doing that, see my more "recent" (2014) and more elaborated post: CF911: 'Help! I've updated the JVM which ColdFusion uses, and now it won't start!'.

Still more updates since this originally was posted:

Update 1: Since I wrote this blog entry in Oct 2011, Adobe has since come out with a new technote in Oct 2012 saying that you are now permitted to update to any version of Java 1.6 (for CF 8/9/10).
Update 2: Since posting this note, I've realized I should document an important fact to be aware of if you DO update the JVM: after doing so, it may seem that changes you made to allow CFHTTP calls to SSL pages (or other tags in CFML that talk via SSL or TLS) may "seem to have been lost". The issue is likely that you had modified your current CF setup to import specific certificates for such sites, but those changes are "lost" when you change the JVM that CF is now using (which has its own keystore). But these cert changes can be recovered. For more on that, see the next to last section below.
Update 3: In Feb 2013, Adobe did come out with an update that authorizes moving to Java 1.7 in either 9 or 10. You must apply the update first, though. More in this Adobe blog entry.

Old news, but not everyone knows

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My catalog of 50 ColdFusion Zeus features discussed publicly so far

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Would you be interested in a catalog of what features have been identified (new, changed, or removed) in ColdFusion Zeus? Would you be surprised to hear that there are about 50 that have been mentioned so far?

Check out what the presentation I offered today, "What's Next In CF Zeus?" (PDF of slides), which I presented at CFCamp in Munich.

(I had mentioned last week that I would be presenting this and another presentation, as well as a daylong class. BTW, the daylong class was popular, with 13 students. Great to meet all those who attended.)

I explain in the slides how I gathered the info, from 5 public Adobe Zeus sessions I've seen so far. None of those had yet cataloged ALL features that had been shown in the other sessions. There were certain things mentioned in all 4, but then also each showed things (or in more detail) that the other did not. I enjoyed pulling this all together in this talk.

As I also note in the slides, I was not permitted to show live demos (only Adobe employees can do that), but still the listing of features and brief discussions (including some code) should still be valuable. I also point to the URLs for the 4 currently available recorded public Adobe sessions, which do in fact offer more code and live demos.

I suspect I'll offer the talk soon on the CFMeetup. I may also present them in another form. But until then, enjoy the slides.

Do let me know if it's a useful list for you, or if I left anything out!

Speaking next week at CFCamp in Germany, 3 topics: Zeus, FusionAnalytics, FusionReactor 4

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Just wanted to share, for any who may be interested to hear, that I will be speaking next week at a new conference called CFCamp, being held in Munich, Germany, on Friday Oct 28 (and now sold out).

At the event, I'll be giving 3 talks. Well, two are sessions in the one-track conference, and one is a day-long class the day before.

The two session topics will be:

  • What's Next In Zeus, aka CF10
  • Continuously improve CF code quality, server availability & application stability

The descriptions for each of those is on that page for the conference program". As you'll also note there, the other speakers are Mark Drew, Gert Franz, Gary Gilbert, Luis Majano, and Bilal Soylu.

The day-long class I'll be doing (separately purchased, and nearly sold out) is:

If you haven't heard, both Fusionreactor 4 and FusionAnalytics have been released in recent weeks. They're powerful tools that I help people use all the time in my independent CF troubleshooting consulting. If you haven't checked them out yet, do. And note the availability of both a live demo (nothing to download and install) and a free 10-day demo for each.

See you in Munich, or in the future

If you may be in the area and interested in attending, see that page (top right) for more on registering.

I'll note that I will likely give both the talks in other venues and formats (whether in-person or over the web) in the future. If you may be interested, let me know.

And if you'll be in Germany next week, I hope to see you there. (Sadly, my wife didn't get to come this time.)

Thanks to all the sponsors for helping make the event happen, for me and for all who will be attending.

CF911: Are you finding CF (or CF Admin) busted after applying a hotfix? A few possible reasons

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Many people have reported that they find after applying certain ColdFusion cumulative hotfixes (CHFs), security hotfixes (SHFs) and hotfixes (HFs) that either CF Admin or perhaps even some feature of CF is busted.

The "good" news is that there are at least a few really common explanations of what may have happened, which I'll explain them here. Once you consider them, you may find either that you can confirm this is what happened (and fix it), or if nothing else you can keep it in mind if you're ever applying them yourself in the future.

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CF911: Tips for dealing with Windows service timeout, useful when CF's taking too long to stop/start

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
In my last entry, CF911: Is your ColdFusion service taking too long to shut down? Find out why, I discussed the first of a two part answer to helping people who are finding that sometimes ColdFusion takes too long to shut down (or startup). That one talks about how to find out where CF may be logging info to explain why it's taking so long.

In this second entry, I'll address the separate but related problem, particularly if you're running CF as a Windows service, that you may find you get timeout errors from the Windows Services panel itself. I'll share some tips to help with that, which I share often with clients of my independent consulting as a CF troubleshooter.

The first thing to understand is that there is indeed a timeout (configurable) for how long the Windows Services control panel is willing to wait. Beyond that, though, there are some 3 more tricks you can use to avoid that timeout. (And I would say again that sometimes you really want to focus instead on WHY CF is taking so long to startup or shutdown, but until you do, the following info may help give you some breathing room.)

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CF911: Is your ColdFusion service taking too long to shut down? Find out why

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Have you ever found (or heard others complain) that sometimes ColdFusion doesn't stop (or it takes a long time to do so)? It can be especially challenging when you're running CF on Windows as a Service, for reasons I'll explain here and in a follow-up entry.

First, this one will help you perhaps find why it's so slow. You may just have been looking in the wrong place for that diagnostic information. Second, the next entry will offer tips to handle on better handling the situation (that the Windows service is slow to stop, and timeouts in the Windows Services panel itself) which you may need to consider until you do solve the root cause problem (or in case it happens again for other reasons).

(Note that most of this info will apply as well if your problem is that CF's taking a long time to start, also.)

As some of you know, I do CF server troubleshooting as an independent consultant. In helping several people a week, this is a fairly common complaint. This also came up on a mailing list today, so I decided to offer these thoughts here.

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Setting up ColdFusion to process html or other file extensions

Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
As a follow-on to my last entry, Setting up CFBuilder to process htm files with the ColdFusion editor, I wanted to offer more info for those who may want to know more about this--or ensure that more is shared with any who would consider doing this.

If you're looking for how to configure CFBuilder to open htm files with the CFML editor, see that other entry. This one instead is about the related idea of having CF (the server) process htm (or other) file extensions. There are certainly pros and cons.

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