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How can I keep CF Admin settings in sync between multiple servers or instances?

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.
Updated, Feb 2022

This question, "How can I keep CF Admin settings in sync between multiple servers or instances?" was asked today on the Adobe CF forums. The person had CF instances on multiple servers and lamented having to login to each CF admin to make changes that would apply equally to all instances, in particular creating or changing datasources.

They wondered if in fact there was a feature in the CF Admin to "cluster" datasource definitions, like there is (since CF2016 Enterprise) the feature to "cluster" scheduled tasks.

While I explained that there was not such a "feature" to sync CF admin settings generally across instances, I added that there WERE at least a couple of options one could consider using to achieve the goal. (And as an update after I wrote this in Apr 2020, note that CF2021 came out a few months later offering still one more.) My answer elaborating things (as is my wont) was long enough that I should have probably created a blog post instead. After submitting it, I decided to do just that, here (and I have tweaked here what I said, with some more elaboration and links).

Short answer: there are different tools that might be considered to help with this task (especially automating it), and a couple more that some may consider:

  • the CFConfig tool within CommandBox, a powerful and automatable command line tool which uses json files and could allow you to sync things, even across CF versions and between CF and Lucee
  • the CF2021 cfsetup tool, a new command line tool which also uses json files and could allow you to sync things, for CF2021 and even earlier version
  • the CF Admin API (minimalist and manual), which you'd have to code to sync settings or set them in a synced manner
  • the CF CAR file feature deserves a mention also, though its use can't be automated (it seems)
  • I would advise AGAINST the seeming "shortcut" of copying neo xml files, especially between different servers or CF versions (same with using symlinks, etc.)

For more on all this, read on.

[....Continue Reading....]

Comments
I believe one could also create a .car file and apply it, in theory, but I am not certain it would get 100% of the settings one might be applying manually.
Would get tedious with more than a handful of boxes to update though.
# Posted By Mark Gregory | 4/7/20 12:47 PM
Oh, of course. Very good point, Mark. I certainly should have mentioned that. I was thinking more of syncing than migrating, but it's close enough.

I will tweak the post, thanking you for the suggestion.
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