Setting up BlueDragon on Apache Tomcat

This is a rewrite of my post on Running ColdFusion 8 on a USB Thumb drive . All we are just going to swap out BlueDragon J2EE for the Adobe's J2EE version of CF Server.

Here is the setup.

Download the following:
BlueDragon for J2EE: http://www.newatlanta.com/c/products/bluedragon/download/home
XAMPP standard http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#641
XAMPP Tomcat plug-in: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#644

Make sure you have Java runtime (JRE)
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

And the Java SDK (or JDK) installed on your machine.
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index_jdk5.jsp

Instructions:

1) Unzip BlueDragon and save it to disk. - I recommend using the ZIP archive or the Self extracting 7-ZIP archive to avoid having to use the XAMPP installer.

2) Unzip XAMPP. - I recommend placing it under your rood dir EX: C:\xampp\.

3) Unzip XAMPP Tomcat plug-in and place the contents where you unzipped XAMPP. - You will be over writing a few files and or folders so don't worry about that.

4) Run the setup_xampp.bat found in the XAMPP root.

5) Run the startup.bat EX: C:\XAMPP\tomcat\bin\ startup.bat

6) Now Point you browser to http://localhost:8080/ and go to the "Tomcat Manager". The default User/Pass is xampp/xampp.

7) Near the bottom of the Tomcat Web Application Manager page is the "WAR file to deploy" section. Use the "Select WAR file to upload" to upload BlueDragon701_352.war file from the BlueDragon zip file you downloaded.

8) After this click on the link for the newly created BlueDragon701_352 application or point your browser to http://localhost:8080/:8080/BlueDragon701_352/ to Confirm that BlueDragon is up and running.

9) After this point your browser to http://localhost:8080/:8080/BlueDragon701_352/BlueDragon/admin.cfm to access the administrator.

Notes:

You can run the other bat files like tomcat_service_install.bat to install it as a service if you so desire.

Tomcat will name the directory based on the WAR file you upload. i.e. If you name it bluedragon.war your file will create a directory called /bluedragon/

You can change the port from 8080 to 80 by editing Tomcat's server.xml file in the conf folder.
EX: C:\xampp\tomcat\conf\server.xml

Like so:
<Connector port="80" protocol="HTTP/1.1" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443" />

Blue Dragon J2EE Goes FOSS

Yes! Finally there is a mature version of CF supported by a stable company that is FOSS.

I love CF. I dreaded the thought of having to go back to PHP or learning .NET or Java as main programming platform. I like PHP, ASP, .NET and Java well enough. But CF has spoiled me. It just takes so much more code/work to write apps in these languages. Besides, I know CF like the back of my hand. I *think* in CF. I dream in code. I program in my sleep and when I dream it is genearly from a CF stand point.

I have been learning Java due to my FUD with "CF is dead" and the general lack of jobs for CF in my area. I just got started with Java and to bring my chops up to speed, with my CF chops, on any of the above, will not happen with out some serious effort.

BTW, I never had FUD with CF until I started looking for a job outside my geek friend circle last year. But that is another story for another time.

But no more. With Blue Dragon J2EE going open source it means that all the companies and dept's that balked at the $7500 per box cost for Enterprise CF have no (good) reason to do so anymore. The $1500 jump in price for Adobe's Enterprise version really pissed me off seeing that it effectively priced itelf out of the ball park for most (mom and pop or local) ISP's and hosting companies and grass root startups (like my past efforts).

The one thing I have learned while learning Java is how powerful (and easy) CFML is. When I started learning Java (and OO programming in general) my eyes became wide open and realized how little I knew and that I was just scratching the surface to the potential of CF.

A few years back, I had foolishly thought that I had done pretty much most every thing that could be done with CF. And at the time, just around when cf 6 was released I probably was pretty much versed in 80-95% of the language to the point where it was rote.

Imagine how stupid I feel now with a ~year of OO under my belt and still not knowing shite.

So I DL's the J2EE version of BD, read the docs. I deployed it on TomCat and got busy.

First thoughts: TomCat was at 23 megs just sitting there. With BD it hit about 33-35 megs, again, just sitting there. It was at about 45 megs running some simple CFM's, i.e no CFC's. I did beat on it a bit (looping over 10,000 items) but it never went over 45 megs. Adobe CF 8 on tomcat hovered at easily twice that and the stand alone version (on apache) kisses 200 megs (sitting there) not including the ODBC, .NET bridge or search services,

All I have to say is that I am thoroughly impressed with BD. Aside from some minor syntactical difference, and missing some minor functionality from Adobe's offering; I am very, very impressed.

In fact, after reading the docs, the enhancements that BD brought to the plate (for CF 7.x) more than makes up for its compatibility issues.

So hello BDJ2EE. Me love you long time.

That's right bitches!! A Free, KICK ASS, Open Source CFML Engine!!

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