ColdFusion 7.02 + Apache 2.2 installed on Ubuntu 7.04 on VMware Player

Its definately harder than windows - but I have managed to get ColdFusion 7.02 Server running on Apache, on Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn).

My previous experience with Linux is very limited to say the least - and most of the issues I ran into were due to misunderstandings on my part about how linux works...

Main issues i ran into:

  • Ubuntu does not have a root account (not strictly true - but when I though it was asking me for a root password - it was actually asking for my password...)
  • Could not execute ColdFusion installer after I had downloaded it (not marked as executeable - chmod +x)
  • I really don't understand linux permissions - I want to be able to create and edit docs in /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/ without having to sudo (I'm sure this one will seem more logical when its not 3am!
  • Had an issue with the connector for apache - the one that is distributed with CF is not compatible with Apache 2.2 (there is a hotfix downloadable from adobe for this, which worked)

All in all, I don't think 4 hours was too bad, baring in mind my inexperience with linux etc.

I have to say, I'm very impressed with VMware player - about 100 billion times faster than MS Virtual PC!

A big thankyou goes to Dave Shuck for his excellent post on Installing CFMX7 & Apache2.2.2 on Ubuntu - Without this I think I would have been totally lost...

I'll post more when its not 3am - and I've had more chance to get everything setup how I want.

(Basically I'm trying to create an environment that I can dev in (and potentially move to other machines) when I'm not using my primary development machine - I have a lightweight laptop that I normally use when I'm not in the office - but I often want to quickly play with something in CF. I didn't want to break my existing windows installation on this machine by installing a load of server / development software - so I thought I'd build a virtual machine - using ubuntu rather than windows to avoid licensing (and hopefully performance) issues!)

Comments
Mark's Gravatar I have done a similar thing setting up blue dragon in Centos in VMWare. It runs very quickly and means you can move the VMWare image from PC to PC. Something which I did which might be of use is I mounted a windows directory from linux, this way you can develop in windows, save the files on your windows machine but you set up the Web Server to mount this folder and serve up the files.
# Posted By Mark | 27/08/07 04:03
Paul Marcotte's Gravatar Hi Dan,

I'm not a linux expert either, but I've picked up a few bash commands from working with OSX. To change the permissions on folders under /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/ use:

sudo chown -R danl foldername/

replace danl with your real linux username and foldername with real folder.

Cheers!
# Posted By Paul Marcotte | 28/08/07 18:13
Daniel Lancelot's Gravatar @Mark: I particularly wanted to get entire dev environment into linux - have installed cfeclipse etc. without any issues (runs better if anything on Ubuntu than it does under windows!)

I'm using SVN to access a remote repository for all projects - so direct windows access is not too much of an issue.

I have set up a shared folder using VMWare tools which allows me to access part of my Windows partition from within Ubuntu (useful for installs etc.)

@Paul: Thanks for that tip - I'd been using sudo chmod 777 foldername - which gave me access to the required files - albeit in a sledgehammer fashion...

chown looks like a better aproach!
# Posted By Daniel Lancelot | 29/08/07 00:39
BlogCFC was created by Raymond Camden. This blog is running version 5.5.1, hosted by TalkWebSolutions.