CommandBox may also be used in production deployments, since it allows you to orchestrate your server environment. This eliminates dependency on hardware, and makes your CFML applications more portable, as a whole. For advanced server configurations, be sure to check out the CFConfig module.
Since the startup of a CommandBox server allows you specify a host and server port, you can easily bind your server to a machine IP address and specify which port it should serve the application on. This allows you to proxy traffic to the application from IIS, Apache, or NGINX and even allows you to serve traffic directly on HTTP port 80 or 443, if you choose.
Container-based deployments are also supported, with official Docker Images and a buildpack for Heroku/Dokku.
The Heroku buildpack for CommandBox will allow you to deploy your CFML applications directly to Heroku (or to Dokku hosts) using CommandBox to manage your CFML engine. It allows you to specify your custom server configuration settings using the CommandBox server API, avoiding additional script and configuration files during the Heroku deployment process.
Deploy a sample app:
Below are the configuration options for both Heroku and Dokku environments.
Create your heroku app:
Heroku will return two URLS - the app domain ( you can configure a custom domain later ), and the heroku repository remote url which is configured to deploy your application.
Set up a new remote for this url:
Set your buildpack for Heroku with the command
Create a file in the root of your project named .buildpacks and add the following to that file:
Now configure a new Git remote for your Dokku deployment ( Dokku will create the repo automatically if it doesn't exist ):
Both Heroku and Dokku use a git push to the repository to trigger deployment. By default the master branch is the only branch triggered for deployment with a push. A simple push the repository triggers the deployment (using the remote name you set in configuration):
You may override this by specifying a branch in your push to act as master (e.g. - deploying to a staging instance):
Once deployment is returned as successful, you may receive NGINX 502 errors for up to 60 seconds as the CommandBox server starts up for the first time.
For zero-downtime deployments on Dokku, create a CHECKS file in the root of your project, which will ensure that your application is up and running before bringing the container online during redeployment.
For implementing a zero-downtime deployment strategy on Heroku, you can customize the postdeploy script in your app.json file or use Heroku's preboot feature
You may run additional commands on your server environment or enter a terminal to connect to your dyno by simply typing heroko run bash from the root directory of your project.
Your heap size settings will need to be configured according to the dyno size ( Heroku ) or available memory of the Dokku instance. By default, Commandbox uses a heap size of 512MB, which is larger than the free/hobby tier for Heroku. A heap size setting larger than that allocated to the dyno will cause a Commandbox startup failure.
See Heroku's environmental notes for Java heap sizes to determine your available heap size upon deployment.
To set the heap size to 300MB, for example, simply run box server set jvm.heapsize=300. This will save the setting to your server.json file and will persist that value to your deployed application.
CommandBox also provides an official Docker image, which allows you to leverage its capability to orchestrate live servers in multi-tier deployments.
Since, CommandBox allows you to configure your entire CFML engine environment from a single file in the root of your project, packaging or mounting your CFML application in to a running CommandBox image container allows you to stand up your application in Docker containers in a matter of seconds.
This section assumes you are using the Official Docker Image
By default, the directory /app in the container is mapped as Commandbox home. To deploy a new application, first pull the image:
Then, from the root of your project, start with
By default the process ports of the container are 8080 (insecure) and 8443 (secure - if enabled in your server.json) so, once the container comes online, you may access your application via browser using the applicable port (which we explicitly exposed for external access in the run command above). You may also specify different port arguments in your run command to assign what is to be used in the container and exposed. This prevents conflicts with other instances in the Docker machine using those ports:
To create your own, customized Docker image, use our Dockerfile repository as the baseline to begin your customizations.
The CommandBox Docker image support the use of environmental variables for the configuration of your servers. Specifically, the image includes the cfconfig CommandBox module, which allows you to provide custom settings for your engine, including the admin password.
$PORT - The port which your server should start on. The default is 8080.
$SSL_PORT - If applicable, the ssl port used by your server The default is 8443.
$CFENGINE - Using the server.json syntax, allows you to specify the CFML engine for your container
$HEALTHCHECK_URI - Specifies the URI endpoint for container health checks. By default, this is set http://127.0.0.1:${PORT}/ at 1 minute intervals with 5 retries and a timeout of 30s
$cfconfig_[engine setting] - Any environment variable provided which includes the cfconfig_ prefix will be determined to be a cfconfig setting and the value after the prefix is presumed to be the setting name. The command cfconfig set ${settingName}=${value} will be run to populate your setting in to the $SERVER_HOME_DIRECTORY.
$cfconfigfile - A cfconfig-compatible JSON file may be provided with this environment variable. The file will be loaded and applied to your server. If an adminPassword key exists, it will be applied as the Server and Web context passwords for Lucee engines
$SERVER_HOME_DIRECTORY - When provided, a custom path to your server home directory will be assigned. By default, this path is set as /root/serverHome ( Note: You may also provide this variable in your app's customized server.json file )
