Multihoming

You typically use the Web Server Configuration Tool to configure a connection between the web server and ColdFusion server running on the same computer. However, you can use the web server connector to route requests to multiple virtual sites to a single ColdFusion server. This is known as multihoming.

In a multihomed environment, you have multiple virtual hosts (also known as virtual sites) connected to a single ColdFusion server. You might use these virtual hosts for separate applications, such as Human Resources (HR), payroll, and marketing, or for separate users in a hosting environment.

Note: You use web-server-specific methods to create separate virtual websites for each use.

Multihoming configuration tasks include:

Enabling access to the ColdFusion Administrator
If any of the applications under a virtual host need to access the ColdFusion Administrator, create a web server mapping (Alias directive in Apache) for /CFIDE that points to the original CFIDE directory. Alternatively, you can copy the entire CFIDE directory to the virtual website.
You can also configure the web server using the command-line Web Server Configuration Tool ‑cfwebroot option, which allows access to the CFIDE directory under the specified web root.

Enabling access to the cfform.js file
If you do not create a web server mapping for /CFIDE, and any of the applications under a virtual host use the cfform tag, enable the virtual host to find the JavaScript files under the CFIDE/scripts directory. To enable access to the scripts, use one of the following options:

  • Copy the original_web_root/CFIDE/scripts directory to a CFIDE/scripts directory on your virtual host.

  • Modify all cfform tags to use the scriptsrc attribute to specify the location of the cfform.js file.

Disabling the cacheRealPath attribute
To ensure that ColdFusion always returns pages from the correct server, disable Cache Web Server Paths in the Caching page of the ColdFusion Administrator. (When you use the multiserver configuration, set the cacheRealPath attribute to false for the ProxyService in the jrun_root/servers/servername/SERVER-INF/jrun.xml file.)

The procedures you perform to enable multihoming differ for each web server.