64-bit ColdFusion - Part II - Installation

Building on the previous post, I will walk through the installation process for the software components involved in this solution. I will assume that Windows Server 2003 64-bit is already installed and configured on the server. 

Installing a Java JDK

The first step in the process is to download and install a 64-bit Java JDK. I used JDK 5 for this install. Install the full JDK, not just the Java JVM. ColdFusion requires the full JDK in order to run. Installation should only take a minute or two. I generally leave the install location at whatever the default is for the installer. If you change the default install location, make sure you note that for later.

Installing JBOSS and CF

There are many guides available on the Web for installing JBOSS. Steve Brownlee made a nice set of posts about installing ColdFusion on JBOSS that I found very useful. Steve covers the actual CF install as well, so I will skip the details and leave you to read Steve's very detailed post for CF. 

The key with JBOSS is specifying your JAVA_HOME setting to point to your 64-bit JVM so you can access the larger heap sizes available to 64-bit software. Set JAVA_HOME in bin/run.bat inside the JBOSS root. It can also be set in run.conf, but we will not be using the conf file for this install.

If you have followed Steve's instructions, you should be able to execute bin/run.bat in the JBOSS root and see the ColdFusion server start inside a command prompt. The command window will stay open until the application server is shut down. You can use Ctrl-C inside the command prompt to shut down JBOSS. I recommend stopping the server that way rather than killing the process.

If you saw the command prompt and were able to access a ColdFusion page in the site you configured, you are officially running ColdFusion in 64-bit mode. If only it were that easy. As you probably noticed along the way, there are lots of things wrong with this picture. JBOSS is still just configured in a base state, your ColdFusion app has to be located inside the JBOSS folder, and the application server is running inside a command window. Not exactly optimal. Next time I will cover the configuration changes necessary to take advantage of JBOSS in 64-bit mode.