After a lot of trial and error i finally figured out how to get CF 8 running in on Windows Server 2008 x64 in IIS 7. So i figured I’d write a post about it since there’s pretty much no documentation covering this that i could find.

Installation

• Take a backup of IIS
  • C:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv\AppCmd add backup "backupname"
• Install CF 8 Enterprise
  • Select Multiserver
  • Keep default paths
  • DO NOT attempt to configure anything for ColdFusion until the update is applied
• Install CF 8.1 Update
  • Configure for Multiserver

Web Site/Server Configuration

• Give the IIS users/groups (IUSR, IIS_IUSRS) full control over your JRun install folder (C:\JRun4\lib\wsconfig)
  • After looking at the logs, it seems that the configuration tool is trying to set IIS_WPG permissions on this folder which is for Server 2003, not 2008
• Create a new application pool called ColdFusion
  • Under advanced settings, enable running in 32 bit mode and make Managed Pipeline mode Classic instead of Integrated
  • CF will not run without 32 bit and Classic enabled (according to my experience so far)
• Create a new website and ensure it is assigned to the ColdFusion application pool
  • For testing, create a website pointed to your default CFIDE install folder
• Launch the Web Server Configuration Tool from Start Menu
  • Click Add
  • Select "coldfusion" from the JRun Server drop down list (not "admin")
  • Ensure the Web Server has IIS selected
  • Select the website you just created from the IIS Web Site drop down list (Do not check All, or be prepared to restore IIS if your running other .Net apps!)
  • Check "Configure web server for ColdFusion 8 application"
  • Click Advanced...
    • Check Enable verbose logging for connector if you want details log requests for debugging
  • Save changes and click yes to restart the web server (this will restart IIS!!!)

Testing

• If you configured a test site to point to your CFIDE folder, go to the website in your browser to the /install.cfm path
  • This should show you a Congratulations screen
• If you configured your site with your own CF files, test those instead

Debugging

• After some trial and error, i figured out the above procedure, but there are logs to refer to.
• the CF web site config tool creates web site configuration structures at this location:
  • \Run4\lib\wsconfig\(some number)
  • Each (some number) corresponds to a different website configured with the tool
  • In each folder is a LogFiles folder that contains logs that you can use to debug the installation
• There's also a log file at: \Run4\lib\wsconfig\wsconfig.log

Un-configuring a site

• If a site needs to be un-configured or re-configured, the web configuration tool seem to always fail when trying to remove a site.
• To remove a site manually:
  • Stop the website in IIS
  • Stop the CF server and CF admin services in the Services administration tools
  • Delete the folder: \Run4\lib\wsconfig\(some number)
    • where (some number) corresponds to the site you want to remove
  • edit the \Run4\lib\wsconfig\wsconfig.properties file and remove the lines referring to the number (some number) of the site folder that you deleted in the previous step
  • Start the CF admin and CF server services
  • Run the web configuration tool and re-add the site you want configured
  • Start the site in IIS