- Deciding What to Buy or Not to Buy
- Questions to Ask a Potential ColdFusion Provider
- Exploring ColdFusion Server Varieties
- Installing ColdFusion Server on Windows Platforms
- Installing ColdFusion Server on Unix-Based Platforms
- Verifying Server Setup
- Understanding the ColdFusion Administrator
- Datasource Options and Setup
- Starting and Stopping ColdFusion Service
- Summary
- Q&A
Understanding the ColdFusion Administrator
Starting with ColdFusion 3.0, Macromedia recognized that system administrators don't always have the luxury of sitting right at the keyboard of the server they're administering. For this reason, Macromedia developed a very nifty Web interface for its program's configuration utility, the ColdFusion Administrator. You can now fire up the Administrator interface by clicking a desktop icon, right-clicking a taskbar icon (on Windows 9x platforms), or by remotely accessing a special URL in any Web browser. Assuming that you used the default directories when you installed ColdFusion server, the URL to access Administrator is
http://your.hostname/CFIDE/Administrator/index.cfm
It's a good idea to bookmark the ColdFusion Administrator page in your browser at this point. I'll be referring to it often in coming chapters as I define datasources, discuss setting up access to your server's mail system, and explore template debugging.
Whichever method you use to start the Administrator, the result will be the same. Your system's default Web browser will bring up the ColdFusion Administrator login screen. Enter the password you specified in the install process and you'll see a set of page frames, like those shown in Figure 3.4, offering access to ColdFusion settings groups. The following sections introduce each of the main groups you see in the leftmost frame of your browser.
Figure 3.4 The main configuration page in ColdFusion Administrator.
The Server Settings Group
This group provides options to tune ColdFusion's performance and the way it handles variables. You probably won't need to make any adjustments to the default settings initially.
Included in the Server Settings panel are
Server performance settings that can be used to fine-tune the way ColdFusion runs on your server
Configuration for ColdFusion variables
A mail server configuration you'll later use to integrate e-mail into your applications
Directory mapping
Directory mapping defines the location of key directories on your Web server, such as the root or home directory of an application.
The Datasources Group
This section provides options to set up and test ColdFusion datasources, including
Setup for ODBC, OLE DB, and native datasource connections
A summary panel listing all datasources regardless of connection method
Setup for the Verity search engine, which you'll later use to construct powerful searches of your documents
The Debug Settings Group
This group controls the behavior of ColdFusion's built-in debugging tools. Settings include
Switches to turn on ColdFusion's various debugging displays
Settings to control who sees the debugging messages
The Automated Tasks Group
This group allows you to schedule automated tasks. Settings include
General automation settings to control whether scheduled tasks are logged
A task scheduler allowing you to define new automated tasks
The Extensions Group
These settings control various options relating to ColdFusion extensions, including
Custom tags
CFX tags
Java extensions
CORBA connectors
An extension is a user-written module that can be used to extend the capabilities of ColdFusion. Extensions come in a variety of flavors and can be written in any of several languages (including ColdFusion's CFML).