Installing and Using ColdFusion MX for J2EE
Using ColdFusion MX Applications with J2EE Application Servers

Using RDS

If you use Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, HomeSite+, or ColdFusion Studio to develop your applications, Remote Development Services (RDS) lets you access a remote ColdFusion MX server using HTTP. Using RDS, IDE users can securely access remote files and data sources, build SQL queries from these data sources, and debug CFML code. However, to maximize security, do not install RDS on production servers.

Note:   ColdFusion MX does not support using RDS if you install multiple instances of ColdFusion MX on a single web server.

In ColdFusion MX for J2EE Application Servers, RDS support typically requires two web modules:

• The ColdFusion MX web module
• The RDS redirector web module, also called the RDS application.

The ColdFusion MX web module handles RDS requests in addition to all requests for ColdFusion pages.

If the ColdFusion MX context root is anything other than /, the redirector web module redirects RDS requests (which always go to the /CFIDE context root) to the ColdFusion MX module. The RDS redirector web module must have the context root /CFIDE and is normally installed in the same directory as cf_root.

Note:   If you install ColdFusion MX at the / context root, you do not need the RDS redirector web module.

The instructions in the installation chapters describe how to install and configure RDS support for your J2EE server. This section provides the following information:

• How to reconfigure RDS support if you change the ColdFusion MX application context root.
• How to disable ColdFusion RDS. This information includes a procedure that applies to all J2EE servers. The individual installation chapters provide additional J2EE server-specific information.

Configuring RDS for a new ColdFusion MX context root

If you change the ColdFusion MX context root after you deploy ColdFusion, you must manually reconfigure the RDS redirector web module to specify the correct context root.

To configure the RDS redirector with the correct context root, you must change the rds.properties file, which is located in the root directory of the RDS web module. The RDS web module root directory is typically located in the same directory as the ColdFusion MX context root, cf_root. For example, for WebSphere in Windows, the RDS root directory might be C:\WebSphere\AppServer\installedApps\My_system\Macromedia ColdFusion MX.ear\rds.war.

The rds.properties file has one line, with the following format:

contextRoot=ColdFusion_context_root

for example,

contextRoot=cfmx

When you change the ColdFusion MX application context root, you must change this line to specify the new ColdFusion MX context root. For example, if you change the ColdFusion MX context root from cfmx to ColdFusionMX, change the line to:

contextRoot=ColdFusionMX

Disabling RDS

If you initially enabled RDS in ColdFusion MX for J2EE Application Servers and want to disable it at a later time, you must do the following:

• If ColdFusion is not located at the / context root, disable or undeploy the RDS redirector web module. (for a description of the module, see the preceding section.)
• Disable the ColdFusion MX web module RDS Servlet. Doing so ensures that ColdFusion MX cannot respond to any RDS requests.

Note:   If you disable RDS, the Browse Server button does not work in the ColdFusion MX Administrator (for example, on the ColdFusion Mappings page).

The procedure for disabling the redirector depends on your J2EE server. For detailed instructions, see the Disabling RDS section in the installation chapter for your J2EE server.

The procedure for disabling the RDS Servlet is the same for all J2EE servers. To disable the RDS servlet do the following:

To disable the RDS Servlet:

1. Back up the ColdFusion web module web.xml file.

   By default, this file is in the cf_root\WEB-INF directory in Windows, and the cf_root/WEB-INF directory on UNIX.

2. Open the original web.xml file for editing.
3. Comment out the RDS Servlet definition, as follows:

   <!--
   <servlet id="macromedia_servlet_8789">
     <servlet-name>RDSServlet</servlet-name>
     <display-name>Apache-Axis Servlet</display-name>
     <servlet-class>coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapServlet</servlet-class>
     <init-param id="InitParam_103401311065856789">
       <param-name>servlet.class</param-name>
       <param-value>coldfusion.rds.RdsFrontEndServlet</param-value>
     </init-param>
   </servlet>
   -->
   

   Note:   Some of the text in the servlet definition, might vary.

4. Comment out the RDS Servlet mapping, as shown in the following example:

   <!--
   <servlet-mapping id="macromedia_mapping_5">>
   <servlet-name>RDSServlet</servlet-name>
   <url-pattern>/CFIDE/main/ide.cfm</url-pattern>
   </servlet-mapping>
   -->
   

   Note:   The servlet-mapping id value might vary.

5. Save the file.

RDS is disabled on the ColdFusion MX Server.

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ndobbing said on May 19, 2004 at 12:16 PM :

It would be helpful to know the security implications of running RDS.

No screen name said on May 19, 2004 at 10:42 PM :

can I just remove the rds.war file from my J2EE app server deployment directory? (I am using Jboss,can I just remove it from jboss/server/default/deploy?)

thks.

jrunrandy said on May 20, 2004 at 5:50 AM :

Sure. If you're using / as the context root for the CF web app, everything should be just fine and RDS will continue to work. If you're using a context root other than /, RDS won't work, but the rest of CF should be just fine.

jrunrandy said on May 20, 2004 at 5:53 AM :

Answering ndobbing:
The docs say that RDS _is_ secure for development servers because you need a password to use it.

The docs recommend that you _don't_ use RDS on a production server because:
* Because it's a production server, you don't want anybody changing anything.
* ColdFusion doesn't encrypt the RDS password when sending it across the wire.

Pegarm1 said on Jan 1, 2005 at 6:14 AM :

How about if I disabled RDS in server configuration during the CF Install, but now want to enable it? How would I go about doing so?

No screen name said on Mar 24, 2005 at 10:29 PM :

I think my issue is related to RDS being active on my win2k3 box. I use dreamweaver MX via webdav to push up files to my server and I can push up any file ext i want including .asp and .css but when I try to push up .cfm files it fails with this message:

The desired action could not be completed becasue the desired resource was not found http error 404
an error occurred cannot put test

the thing is when i try to configuring RDS to access the same virtural directory it works fine. How can I REMOVE RDS access? I can't even disable it. I tried to comment out the two piece of code in the web.xml file it still doesn't allow me to push up files to the server or pull down.

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