Adobe Coldfusion 9 on CentOS 5.4 (x64)

Updated on Monday, April 5, 2010 at 18:53 by Willem

A while back I figured out how to install Adobe (could have been Macromedia back then) Coldfusion MX on an Ubuntu linux server. This config still runs as it should, but in the mean time several things have changed in the world of software. I've been leaning towards Centos 5.4, and Adobe released Coldfusion 9 somewhere in 2009. These two 'events' made me decide to combine the two.

Before I continue, I must warn you that the Coldfusion installer is still broken..... So there's some manipulation of code involved.

Since the new 'server' is going to run in a virtual environment I started in a VMWare Workstation. This way I could make snapshots of my progress. This made it easier to start from scratch. The problem with Linux and me is that I tend to reinstall the OS when things go haywire. So VMWare is a safe way out in this case.

Click to read more ...

Extend Windows System Partition under VMWare

When working with Virtual Machines (VM's) you probably work with templates (and/or) clones to create new VM's. When you do this, you basically get a fixed drive with this. The size of the drives are basically the size from when you created them in the past. Since people put more and more crap programs in these VM's, you'll need more, and more diskspace.

Under VMWare it's relatively simple to add space to a virtual disk (vmdk), or even add an additional disk to the VM. The problem is that this works for creating additional partitions or extend existing NON primary system partitions. This means that you can't enlarge your C: partition, a partition where (under normal circumstances) all your programs are installed.

Click to read more ...

Windows 7 First Impression

Am I growing a cynic, or is this a case being an Apple 'fanboy'? Even though I think I'm open-minded in the world of Operating Systems, I seem to be less and less fond of the latest Microsoft CLIENT Operating Systems. Note the all caps 'client' word. I have no problem whatsoever with the server versions (so far).

Today I installed Windows 7 Enterprise (MSDN edition) on a spare SATA disk in my work laptop (Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook E8310). Initially installing the OS wasn't the problem. The bad things happened when I wanted to install the drivers and work-related software.

I must note that this review might not be very representative. My experience with Vista is about 8 hours total, and as you will find out later on; Windows 7 added about 4 hours today.

Anyway, back to the 'review';
The installation takes (almost) no user input whatsoever. Only things the OS needs to know are;

• clean install or upgrade
• regional settings
• username with a password

The first time Windows booted, I was already getting annoyed with the bouncing / rotating balls in the boot splash screen. They could have used the resources for creating this (either in functionality development ($$$) of the OS, or in speeding up booting the system) for booting faster instead of using CPU-cycles.

For comparison; Apple has a tiny spinning wheel to indicate that the system is booting, no splash screen, and is less expensive (probably $29 USD for an upgrade).

Click to read more ...

VMWare and Firewall / VPN Clients

Well, that was another morning well spent....

A couple off weeks ago I started experimenting with FreeRADIUS on Ubuntu server (v6.06.2 TLS). Mainly because I needed to test some things for work. So I used VMWare to experiment. The networking part was set-up as Bridged.

Today, I wanted to test with iperf (a tool for network performance testing). So I launched the virtual machine, but there was no network connectivity. ifconfig showed that eth1 didn't received an IP adres.
So I ran every possible test there was;

• restarted the interfaces (/etc/init.d/networking restart)

This resulted in the following;

Listening on LPF/eth1/00:0c:29:68:e3:eb
Sending on LPF/eth1/00:0c:29:68:e3:eb
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12

The "DHCPDISCOVER" messages continue about 4 times, then the message:

No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

• restarted the DHCP server
• rebooted the virtual machine
• changes the networking to NAT instead of Bridged (this way, connectivity was restored, but not the way I wanted. I needed Bridge-mode)
• Tried to run the virtual machine on OSX (VMWare Fusion), which worked surprisingly.

After this I ran Wireshark on my server to see if DHCP request were coming in.... And you might have guessed; No DHCP request were reaching the DHCP server. So the problem was work PC related.... As a matter of fact, I had the Cisco VPN client running..... Which didn't allow the DHCP request broadcast.

Shutting the VPN client down solved the DHCP problem. After the virtual machine worked I could reinitiate the VPN.

Mental note to myself: do NOT boot/restart the virtual machines when the VPN is up.