For the past few months I've been planning on writing a post about the services that make this site possible. I've read these sorts of posts on other sites and they seem very marketing heavy. They're often titled "sponsor post" or something equivalent. This post is different. I'm genuinely a fan (and customer) of all of these services and in most cases I pay for them monthly. After the break I discuss each service/app I rely on to power this site. I put each service within category blocks such as: the server, the app, backups, uptime, etc.

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This post is a followup to my previous guide to installing ColdFusion 9 on Ubuntu. While that post was all about the specifics to getting ColdFusion up and running on Ubuntu, this post is all about CentOS. The overall process is the same and I'm covering all the same steps, but the commands in this post are specific to the CentOS operating system. So why I'm writing this?

Overall, installing ColdFusion isn't that big of a deal. But I've yet to see a guide or blog post that outlines all the other topics related to getting a decent ColdFusion server on CentOS up and running. That's why I wrote this super guide, to outline what I believe is important to know about installing ColdFusion. Of course, I'm not covering every single possible detail, but I believe I've hit on all the major topics. Along the way I sprinkle in my own ideas, thoughts, and what I believe are best practices. After you read this post and walk through all the instructions you should have a very solid ColdFusion / Apache set up on CentOS Linux.

There are two important things to note, so please read on.

Everything you will read, all paths, and every setup aspect is written specifically for CentOS. I've tested these instructions on CentOS 5.5, but they should be applicable to other recent versions. If you need instructions for Ubuntu, please read that guide here.

Secondly, and this is extremely important, all commands throughout this post are assumed to be run as root. Some of the commands can be run without root, but most of them cannot. So please, log into your CentOS server using the root account, put sudo in front of every command, or run the su - root command (under a non-root account) before walking through the instructions.

Before we get going, here's a list of what I'll be covering:

1. Creating a Linux user for ColdFusion
2. Disabling SSH and FTP login for the coldfusion user account
3. Installing the required libstdc++.so.5 C++ Library
4. Running the ColdFusion installer
5. Starting ColdFusion for the first time
6. Installing the ColdFusion 9.0.1 updater
7. Verifying the installation of 9.0.1
8. Creating a new ColdFusion instance for general use
9. Tweaking the JVM memory settings
10. Hooking Apache and ColdFusion together
11. Getting the Apache Connector running with selinux
12. Locking down Apache
13. Configuring ColdFusion to start on system boot

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As I was finishing this guide on installing ColdFusion 9 on Ubuntu Linux I tweeted how many words made up the text (over 6,000). Several people commented on Twitter and Facebook saying things like: "[the length] seems a bit excessive," and "is it that complicated?" The thing is, I'm covering much more than simply installing ColdFusion. Overall, just installing ColdFusion isn't that big of a deal. But I've yet to see a guide or blog post that outlines all the other topics related to getting a decent ColdFusion server on Ubuntu up and running. That's why I wrote this super guide, to outline what I believe is important to know about installing ColdFusion. Of course, I'm not covering every single possible detail, but I believe I've hit on all the major topics. Along the way I sprinkle in my own ideas, thoughts, and what I believe are best practices. After you read this post and walk through all the instructions you should have a very solid ColdFusion / Apache set up on Ubuntu Linux.

There are two important things to note, so please read on.

First, this post is all about Ubuntu. Everything you will read, all paths, and every setup aspect is written specifically for Ubuntu. I've tested these instructions on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), but they should be accurate from 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) on. If you're disappointed this was written for Ubuntu, don't be. I have a CentOS post right here that covers all the same topics.

Secondly, and this is extremely important, all commands throughout this post are assumed to be run as root. Some of the commands can be run without root, but most of them cannot. So please, log into your Ubuntu server using the root account, put sudo in front of every command, or run the su - root command (under a non-root account) before walking through the instructions.

Before we get going, here's a list of what I'll be covering:

1. Creating a Linux user for ColdFusion
2. Disabling SSH and FTP login for the coldfusion user account
3. Installing the required libstdc++.so.5 C++ Library
4. Running the ColdFusion installer
5. Starting ColdFusion for the first time
6. Installing the ColdFusion 9.0.1 updater
7. Verifying the installation of 9.0.1
8. Creating a new ColdFusion instance for general use
9. Tweaking the JVM memory settings
10. Hooking Apache and ColdFusion together
11. Locking down Apache
12. Configuring ColdFusion to start on system boot

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Web application security is a difficult topic and can't be covered completely in a single blog post. After the break I discuss one quick way to block ColdFusion Administrator requests in Apache. I also list other resources that will help you understand ColdFusion security and how to apply practical security constructs on your ColdFusion servers.

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I recently stumbled upon a little tab key trick in Mac OS X. I already knew you could press the tab key to autocomplete directory names, but I didn't know you could press the tab key additional times to resolve directory name ambiguity. How does it work? When you are typing directory names and paths, which you do with the change directory (cd) command, you can press the tab key to autocomplete the directory names. If two directories have similar names OS X and Linux will complete what you type up to the point one or more additional directory names match. If you continue to press the tab key a list of all possible directory names will display. This lets you determine what you are looking for and continue typing a directory name to resolve the ambiguity.

I'm stunned I didn't know about this neat feature of OS X and Linux, the two platforms I tested.

Check out the quick video demo below to see exactly what I'm talking about.

My Web sites have been hosted on Linux since 2002. About a year ago I moved some sites to a Linux virtual private server at Viviotech and have recently created setting up a new Linux server over at Linode. Linode is a Linux virtual server platform powered by Xen (Wikipedia) and was started by a friend (and past co-worker) of mine. If you're in need of Linux hosting I highly recommend Linode!

I began setting up my Linode with CentOS 4 since I was already familiar with it. But after having conversations with Chris at Linode I decided to nuke the CentOS distro and install Ubuntu. After doing this I ran into an issue the first time I attempted to connect to the server using ssh. Here's an example of what I saw when connecting.

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