CFConfig and custom Lucee web config file locations

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My understanding is that Lucee/Tomcat can configure the location of the web context config file. That’s been customized on one server I deal with (not by me).

From a quick look through the CFConfig CFCs, it looks like each engine and version has a fixed algorithm for locating the server and web config files, which doesn’t involve backtracking through the Tomcat config files to dig up the location of the file being used. I’d think that sort of digging would be required to work correctly in customized environments.

Another example is that in an uncustomized (by me, CommandBox may have) local CommandBox Lucee instance, the web config file

setConfigRelativePathWithinServerHome( ‘/’ );

Am I missing something here?

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> My understanding is that Lucee/Tomcat can configure the location of the web context config file.

Well, it has nothing to do with Tomcat, but yes, Lucee will allow you to customize the location.

> That’s been customized on one server I deal with (not by me)

Is this just a standard Lucee installation that was created by the installer? That customization, BTW, happens in the web.xml file FWIW.

> From a quick look through the CFConfig CFCs, it looks like each engine and version has a fixed algorithm for locating the server and web config files,

No, not really. When dealing with a non-CommandBox server, you are required to provide the path to the server homes to CFConfig. CFConfig doesn’t really do any guessing there. Now, INSIDE of the server/context home, all the files are always in the same place. That’s just how each engine is made.

> which doesn’t involve backtracking through the Tomcat config files to dig up the location of the file being used

No digging is necessary. It’s up to you to provide the path to the server or web context. CFConfig doesn’t need to know or care if it’s been customized.

> I’d think that sort of digging would be required to work correctly in customized environments.

Nope. Again, no digging is necessary. You provide the path to the context and CFConfig just uses it. CFConfig doesn’t care where it is.

cfconfig show from=/opt/lucee/lib/lucee-server/
or in your case…
cfconfig show from=/that/random/place/we/put/it/lucee-server

CFConfig just uses the path YOU give it.

> Another example is that in an uncustomized (by me, CommandBox may have) local CommandBox Lucee instance, the web config file lucee-web.xml.cfm is located at /WEB-INF/lucee-web/, not directly at /WEB-INF/,

Yes, CommandBox uses a custom location for both the web qnd server context. I’m confused though, are you saying this is a problem?

> Lucee4Web.cfc:26 seems to be doing: setConfigRelativePathWithinServerHome( ‘/’ );

Yes, the same base class is used for both Lucee web and server context, but the web and server contexts have a different place and file name for where they store the config. You can see how those values are different for the server context.
https://github.com/Ortus-Solutions/cfconfig/blob/master/models/providers/Lucee5Server.cfc#L26

> Am I missing something here?

Um, I don’t know. Do you have a question? Is there a problem? Did you run a specific command and expect a specific result but get something unexpected? I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of your E-mail is :slight_smile:

Thanks!

~Brad

ColdBox/CommandBox Developer Advocate
Ortus Solutions, Corp

E-mail: brad@coldbox.org
ColdBox Platform: http://www.coldbox.org
Blog: http://www.codersrevolution.com

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Thanks for getting back Brad.

I confess, my motivations aren’t actually related to CFConfig. From cf code, I need to discover the datasources and mappings for the current (Lucee/Railo) server. It just occurred to me that CFConfig does something similar, so I was looking at how you approach it, but that’s a somewhat different problem.

I ended up looking at the Lucee admin utilities CFC, which is used to show those locations in the admin UI. I ended up with this, where #engine# is ‘lucee’ or ‘railo’:

if (arguments.context == “server”)
path = expandPath(“{#engine#-server}/#engine#-server.xml”);
else // web
path = expandPath(“{#engine#-web}/#engine#-web.xml.cfm”);

So it appears that Lucee/Railo knows how to expand the paths “{lucee-server}” and “{lucee-web}” into the appropriate context locations. Simple and easy, tested on Lucee 4, Lucee 5, and Railo 4.

Since CFConfig needs to be able to access configs for instances besides the current one, this technique probably isn’t useful for you, but it is for me, maybe others too.

Thanks again.