System information

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Last updated 2/21/2012
Chapter 5: Web Server Management
You can connect Adobe ColdFusion to the built-in web server and to external web servers, such as Apache, IIS, and
Sun ONE Web Server (formerly known as iPlanet).
ColdFusion lets you manage web servers when running in the server configuration, in the multiserver configuration,
and when deploying on Macromedia JRun in the J2EE configuration. (Some J2EE application servers include web
server plug-ins that provide similar functionality.)
About web servers in ColdFusion
The web server is a critical component in your ColdFusion environment, and understanding how ColdFusion interacts
with web servers can help you administer your site. ColdFusion provides the following web server options:
Built-in web server A lightweight, all-Java, HTTP 1.0 web server. Suitable for development but not intended for use in
production applications. For more information, see
“Using the built-in web server” on page 59.
External web server A customized web server connector module that forwards requests for ColdFusion pages from an
external web server to ColdFusion. For more information, see
“Using an external web server” on page 60.
Using the built-in web server
The ColdFusion server configuration is built on top of JRun, which includes the JRun web server (JWS), also called the
built-in web server. Although not intended for use in a production environment, the built-in web server is useful in
the following cases:
Coexistence/transition The built-in web server lets you run a previous version of ColdFusion (using an external web
server) and ColdFusion (using the built-in web server) on the same computer while you migrate your existing
applications to ColdFusion.
Development If your workstation runs ColdFusion but does not run an external web server, you can still develop and
test ColdFusion applications locally through the built-in web server.
All web servers listen on a TCP/IP port, which you can specify in the URL. By default, web servers listen for HTTP
requests on port 80 (for example, http://www.adobe.com and http://www.adobe.com:80 are the same). Similarly, port
443 is the default port for https requests.
By default in the server configuration, the built-in web server listens on port 8500. For example, to access the
ColdFusion Administrator through the built-in web server, specify
http://servername:8500/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm. In the multiserver configuration, the default port for the
built-in web server is 8300.
Note: URLs are case sensitive on UNIX operating systems.
If you enable the built-in web server during the installation process and the port is already in use, the installer
automatically finds the next-highest available port and configures the built-in web server to use that port. To
determine the port number used by the built-in web server, open the cf_root/runtime/servers/coldfusion/SERVER-
INF/jrun.xml file in a text editor and examine the
port attribute of the WebService service. In the multiserver
configuration, the path is jrun_root/servers/cfusion/SERVER-INF/jrun.xml.