Install ColdFusion 9 on cpanel server httpd-devel package issue

[veronicabend]

I need to install ColdFusion9 on a WHM/cPanel server on CentOS.

The instructions to install ColdFusion9 on Linux, include adding package:

yum install httpd-devel

I have found cpanel excludes packages like this one, so I can't install it.

Can anyone give me any hints on installing ColdFusion9 on a WHM/cPanel server? As far as I read in documentation, it will ask for this package and I cannot install it.

Thanks. I will appreciate any help on this.

[cPanelTristan]

If you must install that package, you can try removing any http* entry in /etc/yum.conf file and then try installing httpd-devel at that point.

[veronicabend]

If you must install that package, you can try removing any http* entry in /etc/yum.conf file and then try installing httpd-devel at that point.

Ok so I removed httpd* from /etc/yum.conf, and then run yum install httpd-devel .

yum would install several other packages together with httpd-devel for dependencies. And I am afraid any of these packages might conflict with cpanel, so I didn't run the install.

These are the packages yum would install:

Dependencies Resolved

=============================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                 Arch                          Version                                          Repository                      Size
=============================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 httpd-devel                             x86_64                        2.2.15-15.el6.centos.1                           updates                        147 k
Installing for dependencies:
 apr-devel                               x86_64                        1.3.9-3.el6_1.2                                  base                           176 k
 apr-util-devel                          x86_64                        1.3.9-3.el6_0.1                                  base                            69 k
 apr-util-ldap                           x86_64                        1.3.9-3.el6_0.1                                  base                            15 k
 cyrus-sasl-devel                        x86_64                        2.1.23-13.el6                                    base                           302 k
 httpd                                   x86_64                        2.2.15-15.el6.centos.1                           updates                        813 k
 httpd-tools                             x86_64                        2.2.15-15.el6.centos.1                           updates                         70 k
 openldap-devel                          x86_64                        2.4.23-20.el6                                    base                           1.1 M

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================================================================================================
Install       8 Package(s)

Is it ok to go ahead and let yum do all this?

Thanks.

[cPanelTristan]

Well, httpd is not likely good to have installed, since you already have Apache via source by cPanel and that would conflict.

[veronicabend]

From documentation I have read, ColdFusion installer needs that package to create the web server connector that hooks ColdFusion with Apache. Do you know how I can do that manually so I don't break cpanel? I've seen advertisements of coldfusion 9 hosting on cpanel, so it must be possible to get it installed. But I can't find any documentation about it specifically. All instructions I find are for linux boxes without cpanel.

I found these instructions to install on centos:
Aaron West's Technology Blog: Super Guide: Installing ColdFusion 9 on CentOS Linux

They mention this httpd-devel package.

After lots of research, I also found these instructions to manually configure the web server connector, but they're for older versions of ColdFusion:
Manually configure the web server connector | ColdFusion MX standalone
So I am now looking for a way to manually configure the web server connector for ColdFusion 9. I think that might do it for the cpanel server without installing httpd-devel.

Any help you can provide on this matter will be really appreciated.

Thanks.

[veronicabend]

Well, I finally went ahead and tried the installer without the http-devel package.

In short, it worked.

I will leave an explanation of what I did here in case it helps anyone else.

First I had to install a JVM, or the ColdFusion installer wouldn't run. I didn't want Tomcat, just the JVM, so I installed the JVM rpm from Java SE 7u4 Downloads . After installing this, java -version threw a memory error. A graceful reboot of server solved the memory error.

After this the ColdFusion installer run well, and it connected to Apache without issues.

Now I have a question. The ColdFusion installer made changes to httpd.conf. How can I preserve these changes when Easy Apache is run in the future?

Thanks.

[cPanelTristan]

What changes did it make to httpd.conf file? If we know the changes, we could advise how to maintain them going forward.

[veronicabend]

I am not sure of all the changes it made. I can spot these ones at least:

# JRun Settings
LoadModule jrun_module /opt/coldfusion9/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/mod_jrun22.so
<IfModule mod_jrun22.c>
    JRunConfig Verbose false
    JRunConfig Apialloc false
    JRunConfig Ignoresuffixmap false
    JRunConfig Serverstore /opt/coldfusion9/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/jrunserver.store
    JRunConfig Bootstrap 127.0.0.1:51800
    #JRunConfig Errorurl url <optionally redirect to this URL on errors>
    #JRunConfig ProxyRetryInterval 600 <number of seconds to wait before trying to reconnect to unreachable clustered server>
    #JRunConfig ConnectTimeout 15 <number of seconds to wait on a socket connect to a jrun server>
    #JRunConfig RecvTimeout 300 <number of seconds to wait on a socket receive to a jrun server>
    #JRunConfig SendTimeout 15 <number of seconds to wait on a socket send to a jrun server>
    AddHandler jrun-handler .jsp .jws .cfm .cfml .cfc .cfr .cfswf
</IfModule>

And also added index.cfm to this line:

# DirectoryIndex is set via the WHM -> Service Configuration -> Apache Setup -> DirectoryIndex Priority
DirectoryIndex index.html.var index.htm index.html index.shtml index.xhtml index.wml index.perl index.pl index.plx index.ppl index.cgi index.jsp index.js index.jp index.php4 index.php3 index.php index.phtml default.htm default.html home.htm index.php5 Default.html Default.htm home.html index.cfm

Thanks.

[veronicabend]

I have compared the httpd.conf before coldfusion, to the one after, using a file comparison tool.

So these are all the changes I have detected and would need to preserve:

1) The adobe air line inside this block

<IfModule mime_module>
    TypesConfig conf/mime.types
    AddType application/x-compress .Z
AddType application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip .air
    AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz

</IfModule>

2) The following block after the <IfModule prefork.c>..</IfModule>

# JRun Settings
LoadModule jrun_module /opt/coldfusion9/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/mod_jrun22.so
<IfModule mod_jrun22.c>
    JRunConfig Verbose false
    JRunConfig Apialloc false
    JRunConfig Ignoresuffixmap false
    JRunConfig Serverstore /opt/coldfusion9/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/jrunserver.store
    JRunConfig Bootstrap 127.0.0.1:51800
    #JRunConfig Errorurl url <optionally redirect to this URL on errors>
    #JRunConfig ProxyRetryInterval 600 <number of seconds to wait before trying to reconnect to unreachable clustered server>
    #JRunConfig ConnectTimeout 15 <number of seconds to wait on a socket connect to a jrun server>
    #JRunConfig RecvTimeout 300 <number of seconds to wait on a socket receive to a jrun server>
    #JRunConfig SendTimeout 15 <number of seconds to wait on a socket send to a jrun server>
    AddHandler jrun-handler .jsp .jws .cfm .cfml .cfc .cfr .cfswf
</IfModule>

3) Added index.cfm to the DirectoryIndex line

# DirectoryIndex is set via the WHM -> Service Configuration -> Apache Setup -> DirectoryIndex Priority
DirectoryIndex index.html.var index.htm index.html index.shtml index.xhtml index.wml index.perl index.pl index.plx index.ppl index.cgi index.jsp index.js index.jp index.php4 index.php3 index.php index.phtml default.htm default.html home.htm index.php5 Default.html Default.htm home.html index.cfm

4) Added this at the end of httpd.conf file

<Files ~ ".hbmxml$">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>

How can I ensure these changes are preserved when httpd.conf is regenerated?

Thanks.

[cPanelTristan]

First, make a backup of httpd.conf:

cp /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf.bak120515

Then try to run the distiller to see which of these are maintained:

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/apache_conf_distiller --update

Anything that stays in the file will now on EasyApache recompile. Feel free to rebuild the configuration with this command to confirm:

/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf

Now, I believe the last part at the end of EasyApache won't be kept. If that's the case, then place that Files ~ ".hbm.xml$" code you mentioned into /usr/local/apache/conf/includes/post_virtualhost_global.conf file and restart Apache. You'd remove it from httpd.conf before doing that.

[brclaveau]

Hi veronicabend,

How did you end up with this? I am having to do the same with a cPanel install I just set up and was curious what else if anything I should know before going ahead with the install?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[William Davison]

Tristan is this the same problem our hosting company is having with the Coldfusion 10 install script conflicting with Cpanel.
We badly need to get Coldfusion 10 installed on our new server, otherwise we will have to ditch Cpanel.

William

[veronicabend]

Hi brclaveau, I'm sorry I didn't see your message before. I got this working, I documented the process on this ticket, I hope it was helpful to you.

Hi William, I got ColdFusion 9 working on a Centos with cpanel, following the steps I documented on this ticket. Hopefully it will help you with installing ColdFusion 10.