An update for ColdFusion has been released yesterday for both cf2023 (as update 11) and and cf2021 (as update 17). In brief, the update has no security fixes, but does fix dozens of issues that folks have stumbled over recently. It also upgrades some "OEM" libraries underlying CF, and it offers some modest enhancements.

Also, if you may be skipping to this update from prior to CF2023 update 7 or earlier, or CF2021 update 13 or earlier, please don't apply the update before reading below my discussion about possible breaking changes introduced in those updates from March and June of this year.

For more details, read on.

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It's that time again: there are new JVM updates released today (Oct 15, 2024) for the current long-term support (LTS) releases of Oracle Java, 8, 11, 17, and 21, as well as the new short-term release 23. (The previous short-term release, Java 22, is no longer updated.)

TLDR: The new updates are 1.8.0_431 (aka 8u431), 11.0.25, 17.0.13, 21.0.5, and 23.0.1 respectively. Crazy that there are now 5 current Java releases, I realize. More below, including more on each of them including what changed as well as bug fixes and the security fixes each version contains (including their CVE scores regarding urgency of concerns), which are offered in Oracle resources I list below.

Oracle calls these updates "critical patch updates" (yep, "CPU"), but they are in fact scheduled quarterly updates, so that the "critical" aspect of this nomenclature may sometimes be a bit overstated. As is generally the case with these Java updates, most of them have the same changes and fixes across the four JVM versions, though not always.

For some folks, that's all they need to hear. For others, read on.

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Though the news is a couple of days old, I want to share with my readers that an update for ColdFusion has been released Tuesday, Sep 10, for both cf2023 (update 10) and and cf2021 (update 16). In brief, the "only" change is to address a security vulnerability, which is listed in the associated ASPB (security bulletin) for the update as a "critical" severity (CVSS Base Score of 9.8 out of 10)...though curiously that also lists it as being merely a "moderate" priority (3 out of 3).

Also, if you may be skipping to this update from prior to CF2023 update 7 or earlier, or CF2021 update 13 or earlier, please don't apply the update before reading below my discussion about possible breaking changes in those updates from March and June of this year.

And there's still more to consider. Note that if somehow "it's all too much" for you, I can help directly and likely VERY quickly. See my discussion at the bottom here. Otherwise, for the details, read on.

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If you've recently applied CF2021 update 15 or are planning to, you need to be aware of a known issue which can cause unexpected removal of some CF packages (modules) which occurs upon the CF restart after installing the update: specifically it's the document, htmltopdf, pdf, presentation, print, and report modules. The good news is that these are easily added back, either using the CF Admin or via the cfpm command-line tool (added in CF2021).

In this post, I discuss this issue, those options for adding them back, and I also share how I'd found the underlying root cause of the problem: the update has a mistaken internal indication that these packages were updated in this update, when they were not. I'm hoping that Adobe may soon be fixing the problem by creating a new update file, to at least benefit those doing this update going forward. I'll share also the bug report for that (and another on a related matter, about installing multiple packages via cfpm).

TLDR

If you just want to "solve the problem" caused in applying this update 15, simply go into the CF Admin and its "Package Manager" page, go to its "Available Packages" section, and click each of those to install them. (Couldn't you also click the "Install All" button offered there? Yes, but there are reasons to be careful about that. Couldn't you use the cfpm tool? Again, yes. I will address both these points and more, below.)

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An update for ColdFusion has been released today for both cf2023 as update 9 and and cf2021 as update 15. In brief, the only change is an update to Tomcat, which underlies traditional CF installations (whether implemented with the ColdFusion installer or zip extraction process). I'll have more to share on the Tomcat aspects of the update below.

[UPDATE since original posting: it's turned out that there's a bug in update 15 of cf2021--which is NOT affecting cf2023 update 9--that causes unexpected remove of 5 packages. There's now a new "known issues" section at the top of update 15's technote discussing the matter, only briefly. The simple solution is to add back the missing packages. For more on the original discovery, see comments below starting Aug 23,three days after this post and the updates release. For more on the root cause and other more automated solutions, see my comments below those, as well as a subsequent post I created. Now, back to my original post's contents.]

In addition, before applying the update note that there are two other things to beware--related to recent previous CF updates, and that whether you are currently running the immediately preceding update (from June) or the one from March or earlier.

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If you're considering or have already implemented the latest CF updates from June 2024 (CF2023 update 8 and CF2021 update 14), you might have struggled a bit to understand completely what Adobe was getting at in the update technotes, as they can sometimes be rather terse in covering some points (worse, some folks don't even read the technotes before applying the updates). Briefly, a key aspect of the update changes the default algorithm that CF uses--for code that does not specify one, in several CF functions, related to encryption, hashing, or randomization.

As another case where Adobe is opting to sacrifice compatibility for security, the update changes from using the very old default of CFMX_COMPAT (as the default) to using either of a couple different alternatives, depending on the function. And if you're not careful/paying attention, you could break some critical part of your app by applying this update.

TLDR; In this post, I want to share a bit more to help you understand the impact of this update (which I blogged about in June), whether you're a developer or an administrator--and whether you've applied or not yet applied the update. Even if you HAVE done it and "all seems well" (in test or even in prod), do beware there may be nasty problems waiting to bite you that could take time to crop up. I'll explain the issues, and help you find the code using these functions, then help you determine if that code is or IS NOT affected by this change. I'll also discuss some real-world scenarios and challenges, with solutions.

Finally, I'll explain an available JVM arg (-Dcoldfusion.encryption.useCFMX_COMPATAsDefault=TRUE) that can be used to revert this behavior, for those who may feel they need to sacrifice security for compatibility, so as to get to this June update and take their time to address this change in the encryption default. I also explain how the CFMX_COMPAT algorithm DOES still remain available as an option, despite what some have asserted, which may be an acceptable option to use. Then I wrap up with some thoughts on how it may not be so bad that I'm only getting this post out a few weeks after the June update.

For more, read on.

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Don't miss that Adobe had added a useful feature (a "patch", made available in Apr 2024) to help in identifying any CFML code you may have which refers "implicitly" to scopes that would no longer searched (for any variables without a scope prefix), which is the new default behavior for CF2021, CF2023 and beyond as of the March 2024 updates (updates 13 and 7, respectively).

TLDR; (more on each of these points, in the rest of this post)

• For more on the update and the change regarding searchimplicitscopes, see my blog post on the March update
• By following the simple couple of steps (including downloading a needed "patch" as discussed and linked to below), CF will start logging (to a new unscoped.log) whenever code is run that would access an unscoped variable when that would cause CF to implicitly search through scopes (external to the request) which it would no longer search if "searchimplicitscopes" was false. (To be clear, the new logging only works if searchimplicitscopes is true, otherwise such searching would fail if searchimplicitscopes is false, as is the new default as of the March 2024 updates)
• The "patch" is a jar which you must manually obtain and put into place--it is NOT included with the March 2024 CF update, or any others. The steps are very simple, discussed below or in an Adobe technote that was released in the weeks after the March updates, with the title: View unscoped variables in a log file
• Note that this patch is also NOT included in the June 2024 CF updates, CF2021 update 14 and CF2023 update 8
• Further, beware that if you DO apply any update to CF after applying this patch, that update will REMOVE this "patch" (and any jars in the lib/updates folder which is referred to in the technote). Therefore, you would need to put the jar BACK in manually after any such CF update, for it to continue doing its logging
• Finally, FWIW, note that you can even leverage this patch in the CF two updates PRIOR to the March 2024 updates which introduced the change in the default for searchimplicitscopes, so updates 5/6 and 11/12, respectively. That means someone could also use this patch to test BEFORE moving to either the March 2024 updates or later

Again, more on each of these points below. But for some, the news and the link to the technote (and my couple of tips above) may be all they feel they need to hear. For others, I think more perspective may help, so read on for that.

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It's that time again: there are new JVM updates released today (Jul 16, 2024) for the current long-term support (LTS) releases of Oracle Java, 8, 11, 17, and 21, as well as the new short-term release 22.

TLDR: The new updates are 1.8.0_421 (aka 8u421), 11.0.24, 17.0.12, 21.0.4, and 22.0.2 respectively. Crazy that there are now 5 current Java releases, I realize. More below, including more on each of them including what changed as well as bug fixes and the security fixes each version contains (including their CVE scores regarding urgency of concerns), which are offered in Oracle resources I list below.

Oracle calls these updates "critical patch updates" (yep, "CPU"), but they are in fact scheduled quarterly updates, so that the "critical" aspect of this nomenclature may sometimes be a bit overstated. As is generally the case with these Java updates, most of them have the same changes and fixes across the four JVM versions, though not always.

For some folks, that's all they need to hear. For others, read on.

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This is another important heads-up for my readers: there was an important security update released today by Adobe for ColdFusion 2023 (its update 8) and ColdFusion 2021 (its update 14). Just like the recent CF updates in March, this one again has a potential breaking change (trading away compatibility for the sake of security), and it adds yet another JVM arg that allows you to "revert" to the previous default behavior--to let you benefit from OTHER security aspects of the update, while you give time to addressing what should be changed.

In this case, it's about if you use CF encryption-related functions, the default encryption algorithm is changing--and that means that those who encrypt/decrypt (or hash or randomize) data in their apps MUST take steps before applying this updates. For more, read on.

Update: As a heads-up, a few weeks after this post ANNOUNCING the update and its key change, I created another that address confusion many still seem to have after reading the Adobe technote on the update (links below).You may want to skip to reading that post first, On handling the June 2024 CF update change of default algorithm from CFMX_COMPAT.

Otherwise, read on for what I wrote originally.

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If you use the ColdFusion Admin to perform CF updates (vs updating via the command line), has it ever confused or annoyed you that the CF admin update page lists the currently installed version as the first value in "available versions"? That's illogical and confusing.

And it seems easily solved: they should just list the installed version on its own line on the page, above the dropdown.

If you agree that this should be addressed, please do add a vote at the tracker ticket I just posted:

https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/CF-4221716

Sometimes Adobe only implements changes if many ask for it (though sadly, as in this case, some just grumble at an annoyance they may hit only rarely and they move on without ever reporting it. I didn't find anyone else having reported this there, before I created my ticket.)

If you need more info to understand the problem, I'll save you going to look at the ticket by repeating here what I wrote there:

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