cf.Objective() Comes to Melbourne, Australia: cf.Objective(ANZ) is born!

Last year I got the opportunity to have dinner with the steering committee of cf.Objective() in the United States, and the topic of bringing cf.Objective() over the Australia was brought up.  I was instantly excited by the idea as I had always had such a wonderful time at cf.Objective() in the US, and had found it such a marvelous ColdFusion learning experience that I've been back every year since, and am speaking again this year.

Apparently, I've now been given the title of 'cf.Objective() Vice Instigator - Pacific Operations ', for generally just being that annoying guy in the background going 'so what do we do next?', and harassing people on IM to make sure they show up for teleconferences.

Having a stack of focused, ColdFusion specific, Enterprise software development knowledge coming directly into Melbourne is going to be great for local ColdFusion ecosystem, both for Melbourne, and also for the Australia and New Zealand region. 

Speaking from experience, simply having a lot of smart minds that do enterprise ColdFusion development, in the same place, at the same time, talking ColdFusion, means that all sorts of interesting ideas and opportunities get discussed, developed, and often worked on in the halls of the conference.

The conference dates are the 12th and 13th of November, 2009.

We are still in the process of lining up sponsors and speakers, so if you are interested in either, please check out the website for more details and/or sign up for the mailing list, so you can be appraised of further developments. 

If you are interested in coming to cf.Objective(ANZ), please sign up for the mailing list as well, so you can stay abreast of the latest and greatest news for the conference.

Oh, and the hotel is gorgeous, you should check out the online video!

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Installing Railo with Resin and Apache on Ubuntu Server

This took me the better part of a Saturday to get figured out, so I figured I would share it with you all.

There seem to be a few guides out there for installing Railo on RedHat based Linux distro's, but nothing for Debian based ones, so it was a bit of hunting around and trying things out to get this working.

I'm doing this all from my notes, which may not be perfect, so if I miss anything out, or have a typo, please let me know, and I will amend them.

1. On your ubuntu server, run:
   sudo apt-get install build-essential apache2 sun-java6-jdk apache2-threaded-dev
   This will install all the pieces you need for Apache, Java, and compiling.
   
2. Download Railo Server, the All OS version, without the JRE. (I tend to grab the .tar.gz version)
3. I like to untar the Railo archive in /opt, but it doesn't make a huge amount of difference, so
   cd /opt
sudo tar -xf ~/railo-3.0.2.001-resin-3.1.2-without-jre.tar.gz
   
4. I also like to make a symbolic 'railo' link to the install, just for convenience, and make it so my user owns it.
   sudo ln -s railo-3.0.2.001-resin-3.1.2-without-jre railo
sudo chown -R {your username} railo
   
5. Now we have actually got Resin and Railo installed, lets make sure they work, run:
   /opt/railo/bin/httpd.sh
   
6. Go to: http://{yourLinuxBox}:8600/, and you should see the Railo test page, with a link to the administrator.
   
7. Assuming the admin ran as expected, we get to compile the Apache connector, which is actually far simpler than you would think. Run:
   cd /opt/railo
#we don't need to specify java-home, as apt takes care or it
./configure --with-apxs=/usr/bin/apxs2
make
#have to use sudo, as it installs the caucho apache module for us
sudo make install
   
8. Restart apache
   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
9. If you browse to http://{yourLinuxBox}/ you should see the railo test index.cfm
10. If you browser to http://{yourLinuxBox}/caucho-status, you will see the status of the caucho module
11. Browsing to http://railo/railo-context/admin/index.cfm will take you to the Railo admin.
12. Now edit /opt/railo/conf/resin.conf, and set up <host> entries that match your Apache virtual hosts. This allows the Caucho module to know where to send the appropriate .cfm and .cfc requests.
    For example, I like to run each of my CF projects on a seperate port, so my resin.conf <host> entries look like:
    <host id="railo:71" root-directory="/mnt/hgfs/wwwroot/test">
    <web-app id="/" root-directory=""/>
</host>
13. Resin will restart itself whenever it detects the resin.conf file has been changed, so if that hasn't happened, just hit a .cfm page again, it usually wakes it up.
14. That's it... that should get you up and running with Resin and Railo on Ubuntu pretty quickly!

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.  I'm not a Railo guru, but if I can help, I will.