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CF911: Want to monitor ColdFusion "out of process" (from outside the instance itself)? Many ways.

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.
I just blogged about how the hidden gem "enable monitoring server" option in CF 9.0.1 does NOT cause the CF Server Monitor to somehow magically run "out of process". See more on that.

Yet people will reasonably want to be able to have some mechanism that "watches" CF "from the outside", to know when it's gone down. How can you do that? That's what I'll point out in this entry.

And beyond talking about what goes along with the CF Enterprise Server Monitor, I'll also point out options for those who are NOT running CF 8, 9, or 10 Enterprise and therefore do not have the Enterprise Server Monitor. This also includes those CF 6 or 7. There are solutions for you, and also for those running Lucee, Railo, BD, or indeed any Java server. More on all that in a moment.

This is part 4 of an unexpected series of entries today on the CF Enterprise Server Monitor. :-) I got on a roll, and each seemed deserving of its own topic. See the "Related Blog Entries" below this entry for links to those.

What the CF Server Monitor is, and is not

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CF911: "Enable Monitoring Server" option (new in ColdFusion 9.01) DOES NOT monitor "out of process"

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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 been led to believe that the "Enable Monitoring Server" option (new in the CF 9.0.1 Admin) somehow magically runs the CF Enterprise Server Monitor "out of process". Sadly, even some folks from Adobe have and still may assert that. It's just not true. So what is this option about, then? I'm not denying its value. I just want to clarify it.

BTW, today is "more about the CF Server Monitor" day today here at carehart.org. :-) In my last two entries today, I talked about related matters, regarding the impact of the 3 "start" buttons (monitoring, profiling, and memory tracking), as a followup to an older entry I did on them when the monitor came out with CF 8 in 2007. See the "related blog entries" below for more.

In the last entry, I mentioned that in 9.0.1, Adobe added a new "Monitoring Settings" page to the CF Admin, and one of the features is that ability I discussed to turn off the 3 start buttons from within the Admin.

Below that is this other feature, labeled "Enable Monitoring Server". Let me say first that has really have nothing to do with all the discussion of the "start" buttons in the previous entries.

So what does "Enabling Monitor Server" do?

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CF911: Disabling the ColdFusion Server Monitor "start" buttons, when you can't get into the Monitor

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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 know I'm a big fan of CF monitoring, whether with CF Server Monitor, FusionReactor, or SeeFusion. I've written plenty on each (see the categories to the right here).

But the CF Server Monitor does have an Achilles Heel: you may turn on one of its "start" buttons, especially "memory tracking", and find that it's crippling your server. You may not be able to then turn off the feature.

I talked about this potential issue in an entry when CF 8 was released back in 2007, CF Server Monitor: what's the impact on production? you may be surprised. I clarify there that the monitor will not, as some assert, "always kill your server". See that for more details.

And I discussed in an entry earlier today that you can't just "close the monitor" or even restart CF to make the problem go away, because that won't stop the functionality. See CF911: Using the #ColdFusion Server Monitor? Be aware that the "Start" buttons remain enabled.

So what if you are in a situation where using one of the features, especially typically "memory tracking", has in fact sent your server into a tizzy. If you can't even get into the monitor to turn it off, you're going to be in quite a pickle, and understandably panicked.

Easy solution if you're on CF 9.0.1

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CF911: Using the ColdFusion Server Monitor? Be aware that the "Start" buttons remain enabled

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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 use the CF Enterprise Server Monitor (in CF 8, 9, or 10), it's vital that you understand that if you turn on any of the Start buttons at the top ("Start Monitoring", "Start Profiling", or "Start Memory Tracking"), the settings they enable in CF STAY TURNED ON, even if you close the monitor, and EVEN IF YOU RESTART CF.

Why is this important? Well, I discussed the impact of these buttons (which can be severe or negligible, depending on certain factors) in a blog entry I wrote back in 2007 when CF8 was released.

And today someone was kind enough to point it out to someone on Twitter, so I took a look at it and tweaked it a bit to give some more context. While doing that, I realized I'd never mentioned this fact about the "start" buttons, and about an important related change in CF 9.01 (and 10), thus this entry.

The buttons remain enabled over CF restart or closing the monitor

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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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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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I'm speaking this evening on the Adobe CF Developer Week webinars: mine on CF Server Monitor

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.
Hey folks, just a heads up (for those who may not have seen all the tweets and list messages) that this week is the Adobe CF Developer Week series of free webinars.

Update, Recording: Note that this session was recorded. You can view it here, but note that you must login with an Adobe ID to see it.

And I'm presenting a session tonight, Tuesday September 13, at 7pm Eastern, on "Understanding and Using the ColdFusion Server Monitor".

As many of you know, I'm pretty much a fanatic about the monitor, especially about truly understanding elements of it that many miss. And so in my talk this will not be just a dog and pony show, but I will talk about practical experiences with it, though presented to either those new to it or experienced with it.

Note that the times for all these devweek sessions is shown (on the Adobe site) as being Pacific time, so again mine is at 7pm, not 4pm, Eastern.

And yes, the sessions are being recorded and seem to be made available the next day.

Finally, beware that there is no one URL you can use to join in on all the Connect sessions, nor can you get the Connect session URL by going to the event page (via the first link above). Instead, you must register for each event (free) from that first page, to get each session's Connect URL--and you'll want to do that at least several minutes in advance of any session to have time to register, get the email, login, etc.

See you then.

PS Hey, while we're talking monitoring, note as well that if you've not heard, FusionReactor has come out with its new release 4, which has lots of great additions, especially FREC (or the FR Extensions for CF) which cause FR to grab and log lots of great info that the CF Server Monitor only shows and never logs. I'll be blogging about FR 4 soon, but plenty to see on their site. and FusionAnalytics is also just about to release, really!

I won't be discussing these at this talk, focused solely on the server monitor, but as I always tell folks, each tool has its use and often a single shop can benefit from having both (like I do, as do many of the clients I help with troubleshooting). You can find more from me about FR here in my blog. And I'll have lots more to say about FA and FR4 more soon.

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