In the first part of the cache blog entry we looked at how we can use the cache directly without entering into great detail. Now let's have a look at what the cache is at capable of. Because it provides much more than just storing data.
It is long overdue, but a tutorial on how to create your own Railo extension provider is now available on the wiki. Why would you ever want to build your own extension provider? Perhaps you are a framework developer and you want to provide your users running Railo a 'one-click' installation / update. Perhaps you are managing several Railo servers and you want your internal servers to update to your the latest application / custom cfc / built-in-tags/functions, etc.
If you're unfamiliar with what Railo extensions are, they're essentially plug-ins that are available via the Railo team or with the help of the tutorial, you can create your own. If you want to see Railo extensions in action, you can log into your own web context ( http://{YOUR SERVER}/railo-context/admin/web.cfm?action=extension.applications ) and Railo will instantly download and install the many available frameworks (ColdBox, Fusebox, Model Glue, ColdSpring, Mach II, cfwheels, etc.) and applications ( Farcry, Mura, Galleon, Mangoblog, etc).
The Railo team also offers paid extensions (Amazon S3, cluster scope, admin sync, cfvideo and more) via the server context ( http://{YOUR SERVER}/railo-context/admin/server.cfm?action=extension.applications ).
Since version 3.1.2 Railo supports the possibility of using a cache. This blog entry will go into the details of this feature.
The blog is divided into 3 parts, the first part will deal with the base functionality, the second part show how the cache is used in backend and the last part takes care of specialties when using the cache and shows a reference.
I'm actually hesitant to post this because the Railo team is actually trying to make progress on documentation and we have some new documentation policies in place. However, I know if I don't post this and people eventually find out about it, they'll wonder why they didn't know sooner. This tip pertains to Railo's createObject('java') implementation. I'm told that it has been there for awhile, but I couldn't tell you what build it came from. I'll share the code and go from there.
<cfset object = createObject('java','path.to.package.classtoinvoke','/path/to/jar/file/on/system')>
Read that line 2 or 3 times and let it sink in a little. Yes, Railo's createObject('java') has a 3rd (and 4th) argument. This is the full documentation on this from Michael is:
createObject('java',String className,String paths, String delimiter )
- 'java' (required)
- className (required) - the full class name (class and package) of the class to invoke.
- path (optional) - a list of jar files and directory that contains class files
- delimiter (optional) - delimiter used for the path list (default is comma ",")
Sean Corfield will be presenting this to the opemcfml.org advisory board, whether it gets voted on or not remains to be seen. Also, please note that I'm making Documentation/Wiki a high priority for the year 2010.
First off, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy 2010!! Almost 2 weeks late. Better late than never. ;) Railo Open Source has come a long way since the open source release on March 31st, 2009 and we hope to make 2010 even more interesting for the community.
For those of you that aren't on the mailing list, you may be unaware that Jordan Michaels of Vivio Technologies fame has stepped up to be the Volunteer Community Deployments Coordinator for Railo last month. Jordan Michaels and Andrea Campolonghi have been busy ever since getting the new Installers project up and running. Keep in mind that this is a Community effort and the Railo team is very appreciative of Jordan's time in helping the CFML Community become a better place as he's also very active with the Open BlueDragon installers as well.
Be sure to keep tabs on http://projects.getrailo.org/, you may find some interesting hosted projects now and then.
I hope everyone knows by now that Railo is a JBoss Community project? We recently completed the JBoss ISV Partner approval process so that Railo is listed as an ISV Partner and the Railo server is listed in the ISV software catalog. This should help draw even more new users to CFML from the Java community (we already see a steady stream of Railo downloads by Java developers who have not previously used CFML)!
If you've installed or upgraded to Railo 3.1.2+ and you're also using Transfer, you may (or may have already) bumped into this error:
Message: Bean creation exception during init() of transfer.TransferFactory Detail: read acccess is protected:to access the configuration without a password, you need to change the read access to [open] in the Server Administrator
To get around this issue, you'll need to do the following:
Nothing has changed in regards to code, but a decision was made to tighten down security.
A question came up on the mailing list about how to reset passwords if you've forgotten them. This entry will cover both the server context and the local web context.
Heh. Shortly after this post, Micha pinged me as to why I didn't just point people to the password reset option in the server context. Truth be told, I forgot about it. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of http://{hostname}/railo-context/admin/server.cfm?action=security.password and you'll see this:
- That will reset the password back to the default.
So, ages ago we posted up the origin of Railo and where the name comes from. Micha actually tracked down the episode and gave us a little clip. It came from Star Trek Enterprise, Season 1 - Episode 25. I think this may solve some of the, 'how do you pronounce Railo?' questions.
A Railo user just pointed out that we don't have links to my series of blog posts about installing Railo on Tomcat anywhere on the Railo site or blog so I figured I'd rectify that! I started the series in March (before I joined Railo) and continued through June, beginning with the simplest way to get Railo running (Railo Express) and working up through increasingly sophisticated configurations. Here are links to each of the posts:
