TechNote (Archived)

Recommended supported configurations for ColdFusion MX 6.1 and 7.0 Server

This document discusses the supported configurations for ColdFusion MX 6.1 and 7.0 JRun-based servers. The intent is to describe the optimal, reliable environment for ColdFusion applications and to better support users of ColdFusion with these configurations.

Many known problems have been fixed in updaters and subsequent individual hot fixes. In order for ColdFusion MX to run optimally, the latest patches should be incorporated into any production system.

JVM default installation settings

When debugging problems such as hangs, performance problems or memory issues, the most often modified components of the installation are the Java/JVM version and JVM switches. The default Sun JVM and JVM switches installed with ColdFusion MX were the result of hundreds of thousands of hours of testing. ColdFusion engineering and QA have found the shipped JVMs and JVM switches to be reliable.

Debugging

ColdFusion engineering and support will ask the user to restore the original memory-related switches for the JVM (except for -XmX) as part of the debugging process. Garbage collection should be the default -XX:+UseParallelGC.

The user can and should adjust -Xmx (heap size) and-maxPermSize based on their application size, especially for applications migrated from ColdFusion 5 that might use a larger footprint than the 512m (512MB) default heap size. Also, some Verity operations take more memory in ColdFusion MX 7 than in prior versions and this might require a larger-Xmx heap size.

Load test under real world conditions to determine the best maximum heap size value for your applications.

ColdFusion MX 6.1 Standard and Enterprise recommended configuration

The following configuration is recommended for ColdFusion MX 6.1:

JVM and JVM switches

Sun 1.4.2b28 (the installed JVM)

JVM config: (items highlighted can be adjusted)

 java.args=-server -Xmx512m -Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false -Xbootclasspath/a:"{application.home}/../lib/webchartsJava2D.jar"-XX:MaxPermSize=128m -XX:+UseParallelGC -DJINTEGRA_NATIVE_MODE -DJINTEGRA_PREFETCH_ENUMS  -Djavax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory=com.macromedia.crimson.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl -Djavax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory=com.macromedia.crimson.jaxp.DocumentBuilderFactoryImpl

Apply the ColdFusion MX 6.1 Updater

The 6.1 updater has over 70 major fixes to the original 6.1 release.
Upgrade to the latest database drivers version 3.5 build 13 (macromedia_drivers.jar). There were numerous problems with the original 6.1 drivers (3.2) and SQL Server and Oracle databases. Errors such as "no more data" and "arrayindexoutofbounds" as well as server hangs caused by various bugs in the drivers are fixed in the latest version. The 3.5 driver pack has numerous fixes for Oracle and SQL Server stability. 3.5 build 13 is required for Oracle 10gR2 and SQL Server 2005 support. 3.5 also has support for setting DBDATE on Informix for systems that might have different defaults than the client machine.
JRun 4 updater 3 is included with ColdFusion MX 6.1 updater. See www.adobe.com/support/jrun/updaters.html for more information on JRun 4 updaters.

Post 6.1 Updater patches (apply after the 6.1 Updater)

The most common problems for hangs and crashes are fixed by these post-6.1 updater hot fixes.

57510 - thread deadlock issue causing server hang (can be very low load)
59763 - slow leak with debugging ON
55681 - requests sent before ColdFusion finishes startup (CF application deployed) causes ColdFusion deployment to fail (no requests served)
61508 - cfquery/cfstoredproc maxrows not working (since ColdFusion MX 6.0). No hot fix for 6.1. See TechNote b815db1d for details of the workaround.
Web server connector patches (various). Almost every connector is affected.
Client variable hot fixes. Fix several issues with both purge and maintenance of client variables that could cause hangs/crashes.

ColdFusion MX 7.0 Standard, Enterprise and MultiServer recommended configuration

The following configuration is required for ColdFusion MX 7.0 support on JRun platforms.

JVM and JVM switches

Sun 1.4.2_05 (the installed JVM)

jvm.config: (items highlighted can be adjusted)

 java.args=-server -DJINTEGRA_NATIVE_MODE  -DJINTEGRA_PREFETCH_ENUMS -Xmx512m -Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false-XX:MaxPermSize=128m -Dcoldfusion.rootDir={application.home}/../ -Dcoldfusion.libPath={application.home}/../lib -XX:+UseParallelGC -Dcoldfusion.classPath={application.home}/../lib/updates,{application.home}/../lib/,{application.home}/../gateway/lib/,{application.home}/../wwwroot/WEB-INF/cfform/jars

Apply the ColdFusion MX 7.0.1 Updater
Apply the ColdFusion MX 7.0.2 Updater
- The 7.0.1 updater is required before installing the 7.0.2 updater.
- The 7.0.2 updater has over 100 additional fixes from the original release of 7.0.
Upgrade to the latest database drivers 3.5 build 13 (macromedia_drivers.jar). 7.0 shipped with 3.3 build 48 drivers, which had problems with Oracle clobs with certain character sets (NLS_CHARACTERSET). The 3.5 driver pack has numerous fixes for Oracle and SQL Server stability and is required for Oracle 10gR2 support and SQL Server 2005. 3.5 also has support for setting DBDATE on Informix for systems that might have different defaults than the client machine.
JRun 4 updater 5 is included with ColdFusion MX 7.0.1 updater. See www.adobe.com/support/jrun/updaters.html for more information on JRun 4 updaters.

After applying the configuration suggestions above, if there are still performance problems, review some of the suggested documents in the Additional Information section below to aid in debugging.