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Configuring FusionReactor to show "real ip address" when behind a load balancer or other proxy

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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.
If your server is behind a load balancer or other sort of proxy, you may have noticed that when you view information about requests in FusionReactor, they all have the same (or nearly the same) IP address. This can be easily fixed, and I show you how in this post.

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Speaking at CFCamp 2019, for the 10th talk/7th year!

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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.
Following on my recent announcement about speaking at CF Summit 2019, I am delighted to announce also that I've been selected to speak at CFCamp 2019, in Munich this October.

This will be my sixth year in a row presenting at this wonderful event, and my seventh year total. It will also be my 10th presentation there. (You can see all my past presentations, including when and where offered, at carehart.org/presentations.)

FWIW, half of those talks have been "sponsor" presentations on behalf of Intergral, the makers of FusionReactor, while the rest were not. And despite the title of my talk this year, "Comparing Monitoring Solutions for CF and Lucee", it is NOT an FR-sponsored talk. See the description below, for more.

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Considering use of Amazon Corretto, the new openjdk jvm, especially with ColdFusion

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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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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What's an admin to do: Oracle's changed stance on production use of Java, going forward?

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.
Did you know that Oracle announced in 2018 major changes regarding free production use of Java 8 and 11?
  • Regarding Java 8, did you know that Oracle will no longer offer free updates/security patches for Java 8, if used for production (NOT just "commercial") purposes beyond Jan 2019? After that, you must pay them for support/updates (including security updates). For more on why this is NOT just about "commercial" use, see below.)
  • Regarding Java 11, the next major release, did you know that the Oracle Java 11 JVM cannot be USED at ALL for PRODUCTION purposes, without paying for it?
  • Finally, while Oracle will be offering a free openJDK implementation (which CAN be used for production, for free), did you know they will only be committing to supporting/updating their Oracle Java 11 openjdk for 6 months after release, leaving subsequent updates to the community of contributors?

For more, including why this may have significant impact on your use of Java-based applications, as well as alternatives that may exist for you going forward, read on.

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CF911: High CPU in ColdFusion? Some common but perhaps unexpected causes

Note: This blog post is from 2014. 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 often help people who are reporting that CF is "running hot on the CPU", maybe reaching 80 or even 100% of the CPU, whether in spikes or for extended periods. What might you propose people look at, when you've heard that? I've heard all kinds of things over the years, often focused on coding, or perhaps jvm tuning.

But as is often the case in a lot of the CF server troubleshooting consulting I do, I find the causes to be far less often what most people seem to suspect. So what would I look for when someone reported high CPU in ColdFusion (or Lucee or Railo )? Read on.

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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: Lies, damned lies, and when memory problems not be at all what they seem, Part 1

Note: This blog post is from 2010. 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.
Following on my earlier entry, CF911: Lies, Damned Lies, and CF Request Timeouts...What You May Not Realize, another common source of confusion and misunderstanding for people is when they think their server is "running out of memory", when in fact the problem is often not at all what they think. In this entry, I want to apply the same "cranky" tone :-) and extended explanation to this equally controversial/confusing topic.

I hear people raise concerns with memory problems quite often, whether in my CF Server Troubleshooting practice, or just in my participating in many mailing lists. Indeed, addressing this issue more than a few times the past couple of weeks has motivated me to create this, which will be a series of blog entries.

The series parts are expected to be:

  • Step 1: Determine if indeed you are getting "outofmemory" errors (this entry)
  • Step 2: Realize that having high memory usage is not necessarily a problem (entry to come)
  • Step 3: Realize that OutOfMemory does not necessarily mean "out of heap" (entry to come)
  • Step 4: Diagnose why you really are running out of heap (if you are) (entry to come)
  • Step 5: Realize that CF is maybe suffering because you set the heap too large (entry to come)
  • Step 6: If CF is hanging up but NOT due to memory, what could it be? (entry to come)

Let's get started and see how far we get...

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CF911: Easier thread dumps and stack traces in CF: how and why

Note: This blog post is from 2009. 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.
You may have heard the value of taking thread dumps or stack traces when trying to understand and resolve problems with CF. They can be valuable to see what's really running on your server at the time it may seem hung or slow to respond. The problem is that they can be challenging to obtain, so here's how to get them even more easily.

(If you're not familiar with the value of thread dumps or stack traces, read on. The resources I point to get help you to appreciate their usefulness.)

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Suffering CPU/DB/memory problems in CF? Spiders, monitor pings, and more may be to blame

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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're trying to get to the bottom of high memory or CPU use or database contention on CFML servers, you may be missing a seemingly innocuous but deadly invader (or many of them, really. Many more than you may ever dream.) If you're focusing only on "what are my long running requests?" or wondering "Why does CF have a memory leak?", you may be looking at the wrong problem.

What if the problem isn't really a "leak" at all, nor "poorly performing code", nor "CF being unable to scale", but instead what if it's really all due thousands or millions of page requests, which (worse) are likely creating (unexpectedly ) thousands or millions of sessions and client variables, each day? They may even be something you're causing (but more likely not). It's a pernicious problem that many never even fathom, or may dismiss too readily.

Curious to hear more? Read on.

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