Note: This blog post is from 2021. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.For those using the Long-term Support (LTS) versions of Oracle Java, 8 and 11, please note `there were new updates released last week (Apr 20), specifically Java 11.0.11 and 8.0_291. For some, that's all they need to hear. They will take that ball and run with it.
For most, you should read on, especially about an important change regarding TLS support (and calling out to servers not yet running TLS 1.2 or above). I cover that and other important topics:
Note: This blog post is from 2021. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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 wished you could confirm with 100% certainty what Java version is in use by the CF instance you are running? Or where the JVM's location is (in case you are told to modify files related to it)?
Some good news is that ColdFusion offers simple ways/variables that can show you each of these, via the admin or via CFML code. In this post, I discuss both approaches, including a simple single variable which works in CF2018 and above, a variation for those on CF2016 and earlier, as well as variations for Lucee.
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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.For those using the Long-term support (LTS) versions of Oracle Java, 8 and 11, please note that there were new updates released last week (Oct 20), specifically Java 11.0.9 and 8.0_271. For more on each, see the:
For some, that's all they need to hear.
And I could (and probably should) leave it at that. But there are other questions which folks will have, including more on getting those binaries/installers (from Oracle or Adobe), on the difference between those LTS versions and "more recent" Java versions, as well as non-Oracle JVMs, and on licensing matters and more. For those, read on. Perhaps I will split this other stuff out into its own post at some point, so I can just point to it from news of these Java updates.
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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.I have a really simple solution to offer here, for a problem that has been nagging people running ColdFusion for the past few years. This post may also benefit those NOT running CF, especially if they have found confusing/conflicting information about the Java metaspace error and jvm argument that relates to it.
Perhaps you're getting errors referring to "metaspace" or "OutOfMemoryError: Metaspace", whether in your web sites, error logs, or even the CF Admin, and you wonder "what to do". Or you may be getting odd occurrences of blank pages, and if you look in your coldfusion-error.log you are finding such metaspace errors.
TLDR; In all these cases, the solution is simple (and may seem contrarian to some ears): REMOVE the maxmetaspace element from your JVM arguments. Indeed, I would go so far as to say everyone should simply remove it, even BEFORE you may get errors.
In the post that follows, I will explain how to remove it, including how you need to be VERY careful when doing that. You may also wonder why I recommend removing it, versus raising it. I cover that, as well as a bug report I filed with Adobe related this tis (which was fixed as of CF2021), below.
I also created an abbreviated version of this post, on the Adobe CF portal, if that may interest some readers.
Note: This blog post is from 2019. 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 a heads-up for folks using CF, Lucee, and other Java-based apps and app servers: Oracle has released today a new JVM update, for Java 8 and 11. It's update 221 for Java 8 (1.8.0_221), and update 4 for Java 11 (11.0.4).
For some, that's all they need to know. For most, they will probably want to read on.
Note: This blog post is from 2019. 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.Yep, I'm a bit late on this. :-) Here are what I might propose to be the top 10 posts of mine from 2018 (by my own choice, and in reverse chronological order):
Note: This blog post is from 2019. 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.Does Oracle's change regarding Java and limiting who can use what for free apply only to "commercial" users (as in "corporate" or "business" use), or do the limitations apply to ANY production use (including non-"commercial" orgs like non-profits, agencies, schools, etc.)? I offer here my understanding based on research of Oracle's own resources.
Bottom line: these limitations DO apply to ANY PRODUCTION use, not just "commercial" use, definitely regarding Java 11, and seemingly clearly regarding Java 8.
For more clarification, read on.
Note: This blog post is from 2018. 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.For those of you running ColdFusion 11, did you know that the countdown clock is ticking toward its end of support by Adobe?
After April 30, 2019, Adobe will no longer provide any updates for CF11, so there will be no security patches or hot fixes for CF 11 after that. Of course, updates for CF2016 will indeed continue into Feb 2021, while CF2018 updates will continue into July 2023. And we could expect CF2020 (when it comes) to by supported into 2025.
How do I know this? Where does Adobe say it? And can one buy support (yes) to "buy extra time to get such CF11 updates beyond April" (no)? And what about CF11 support for Java 11 (no)? Finally, could you use help in moving off CF11 to CF 2016 or 2018? For more on each of these, read on.
(Update: I should note that Adobe did indeed offer one more update beyond April 2019, in June, when they updated CF2018 and 2016 as well for an important security update. That was a bonus. They have said there really will be no more CF11 updates, as per the original plan.)
Note: This blog post is from 2018. 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 I posted earlier today, there are big changes afoot in the Java world, about production (not just "commercial") use of Java going forward. This is big news, as it is for anyone using Java 8 or 11 for production purposes.
But here's some good news: Amazon has recently released a new free JVM (java virtual machine) implementation based on the OpenJDK specification, called Corretto. In this post, I want to share some news about it. (Off the bat, let me tell my friends on any Linux flavor other than Amazon Linux 2, this is not yet available to you. For now it is only available for Amazon Linux 2 as well as Windows, MacOS, and as a docker image. Other Linux flavors are due in Q1 2019.)
For much more, read on.
Update in Jan 2019: This is no longer an option for CF folks to consider, as Adobe announced both that they have licensed Oracle Java for production use by those using CF, and they clarified that they will NOT be adding support for any OpenJDK implementations. I will leave this post and the rest, for non-CF users and for posterity.
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