It is common to protect pages on your site through your CF code that runs on every request. This does not protect static files like images, plus it can still expose extra surface area of your site for attack. CommandBox has a security system to block certain paths on your site at the web server level, so these requests never reach CF.

Authentication Mechanisms

There are currently two authentication mechanisms you can enable in CommandBox. Any combination of them can be used to secure the protected portions of your site. When CommandBox determines that the current page requires authentication, it will check each enabled auth mechanism until it finds one that can validate the user.

Basic Authentication

Basic Authentication is built on a simple username/password list and challenges the user to provide credentials in their browser. Read more here

Client Cert Authentication

Client Cert auth is common for internal government sites and involves the user installing a private certificate on their PC which the server asks the browser to send while negotiation the SSL connection. Client certs are a PKI cert, and often times are stored on a CAC which is a physical card issued to the user. Read more here

More to Come

There are more auth mechanisms we will add in the future including Digest Auth, Header Auth, and SSO. Contact us if you're wanting to sponsor any of these.

Auth Predicate

If you do not provide an auth predicate but you enable at least one auth mechanism, ALL PAGES on the entire site will be secured. This is quite secure, but often times you only want to protect a subfolder such as /CFIDE/administrator or /lucee/admin.

To limit the scope of what pages required authentication, you can specify an auth predicate, which follows the same syntax as Server Rules.

server set web.security.authPredicate="regex( pattern='^/lucee/admin/.*', case-sensitive=false )"

We don't recommend using path() or path-prefix() as they are not case sensitive, which can lead to them being easily worked around if you are on Windows. Even regex() is case-sensitive by default. Only use a case sensitive predicate matcher if your file system and web server are set to be case sensitive! If your server is case sensitive, then the example above can be simplified to this:

server set web.security.authPredicate="path-prefix(/lucee/admin/)"

The most common auth predicates match a subfolder, but you are not limited to this. Anything valid in a server rule predicate can be used here, including HTTP method, headers, remote IP, etc.

CommandBox servers have a method of locking down secure URLs and or implementing any of the Undertow predicate and handlers via a nice text based language. Undertow supports a “predicate language” that allows a string to be parsed into a graph of predicates (conditions) and handlers (actions to take). Ex:

path-suffix-nocase(/box.json) -> set-error(404)

These rules can be used for any of the following:

• Security - Block paths, IPs, or users

• URL rewrites - Rewrite incoming URLs to something different

• Modifying HTTP requests on the fly - Set headers, cookies, or response codes

Much of this functionality overlaps with the existing Tuckey-based rewrites in CommandBox, but this functionality is built directly into Undertow, has a more streamlined syntax, and allows for easier ad-hoc rules to be layered into a server that allows for you to have custom rules layered on top of built in rules. It can be used to replace what Tuckey does, or added on top.

Create your Rules

Unlike custom Tuckey-based rewrites that must be placed in a single XML file, server rules can be provided ad-hoc in a variety of locations. They are combined and passed to the server in the order defined. This allows you to easily "layer" custom rules along with out-of-the-box lockdown profiles.

For maximum configuration options, the following mechanisms are supported for specifying the rules for a given server. Rules are processed in the order listed. i.e., a rule defined in your server.json is processed prior to a rule in your server.default config setting.

1. Ad-hoc rule array in sites object or .site.json for Multi-site server

2. Ad-hoc rule array in server.json

3. External rules files in the sites object of the server.json or .site.json for Multi-site server

4. External rules files in server.json in the order defined

5. Ad-hoc rule array in config setting server.defaults

6. External rules files in config setting server.defaults in the order defined

7. CommandBox built-in rules (web.blockCFAdmin, web.blockSensitivePaths)

8. Any module listening to server interceptions can inject their rules wherever they please in the array.

server.json Rules

You can specify ad-hoc rules in the web.rules property as an array of strings in your server.json as well as specify one or more external rule files in the web.rulesFile property as an array or list of file glob patterns.

{
    "web" : {
        "rules" : [
            "path-suffix-nocase(/box.json) -> set-error(404)",
            "path-suffix-nocase(hidden.js) -> set-error(404)",
            "path-prefix-nocase(/admin/) -> ip-access-control(192.168.0.* allow)",
            "path(/sitemap.xml) -> rewrite(/sitemap.cfm)",
        "disallowed-methods(trace)"
        ],
          "rulesFile" : "../secure-rules.json"
        // Or...
          "rulesFile" : ["../security.json","../rewrites.txt","../app-headers.json"]
        // Or...
          "rulesFile" : "../rules/*.json"
    }
}

External rule files with a .json suffix will be expected to be a valid JSON file containing an array of strings. Ex:

[
  "path-suffix-nocase(/box.json) -> set-error(404)",
  "path-suffix-nocase(hidden.js) -> set-error(404)"
]

External rule files with any extension OTHER than .json will be expected to be a raw text file with one rule per line. Emtpy lines are ignored and the rules are processed in the order defined.

path-suffix-nocase(/box.json) -> set-error(404)
path-suffix-nocase(hidden.js) -> set-error(404)

Rules specified directly in the server.json or in an external JSON file must be escaped for the JSON they are a part of. Using a plain text external file can help readability since no additional escaping is required for the rules.

config setting server.defaults Rules

Like all other config server defaults, they follow the same pattern as the server.json file.

config set server.defaults.web.ruleFile=/path/to/rules.json

Commenting Out Rules

You can comment out any rule (whether it's in JSON or a text file) by proceeding it with a pound sign (#).

# Here is a comment that will be ignored

# The following rule also won't be run
# path-suffix-nocase(hidden.js) -> set-error(404)

CommandBox allows you full control over the servers you start. This includes the port and host, custom JVM args, URL rewriting, web aliases, custom error pages, and custom welcome files.

Ways to provide configuration

Configuration can be set at several different levels:

1. Passed as parameters to the server start command

2. Stored in a server.json file for that server

3. Global defaults in the server.defaults config setting

4. Internal defaults from the ServerService

Settings will be used in that order. Also, any parameters passed to the start command will automatically be saved to your server.json file unless you pass the --noSaveSettings flag.

File path handling

A lot of settings used to start a server involve file paths. Paths starting with a drive letter like C:/, a UNC network path like \\, or a leading slash like / are considered absolute paths and will not be expanded. Try to avoid absolute paths if you want to make your server config portable.

Paths that start with a file/folder name like foo/bar.jar or ../../lib/my.jar are relative and the root folder that they are relative to depends on where there are specified.

• If the path is passed as a parameter to the start command, the path is relative to the current working directory

• If the path is in the server.json file, it is relative to the folder containing the JSON file. (Remember the server.json doesn't have to be in the web root!)

• If the path is in a global server.defaults config setting, it is relative to the web root of the server.

CommandBox's web server supports enabling Basic Auth on your sites.

server set web.security.basicAuth.enabled=true
server set web.security.realm="My Realm"
server set web.security.basicAuth.users.brad=pass
server set web.security.basicAuth.users.luis=pass2

That will create the following data in your server.json, which will be picked up the next time you start your server.

{
    "web":{
        "security" : {
            "realm" : "My Realm",
            "authPredicate" : "regex( pattern='^/lucee/admin/.*', case-sensitive=false )",
            "basicAuth":{
                "users":{
                    "brad":"pass",
                    "luis":"pass2"
                },
                "enable":"true"
            }
        }
    }
}

If there is no authPredicate set, basic auth with secure ALL PAGES on the site. Once you set an authPredicate, only the pages matching the predicate will require authentication.

The old setting location for Basic Auth (web.basicAuth) will STILL WORK until the next major version of CommandBox, but should be considered deprecated. If both the settings exist (Ex: web.basicAuth.enable and web.security.basicAuth.enable), the new location will be given precedence.

CommandBox has profiles you can assign to a server when you start it to configure the default settings. This is to provide easy secure-by-default setups for your production servers, and to make it easier to switch between a development mode and production mode.

There are 3 currently supported profiles. Custom profiles will be added as a future feature.

• Production - Locked down for production hosting

• Development - Lax security for local development

• None - For backwards compat and custom setups. Doesn't apply any web server rules

Setting the profile

You can set the profile for your server in your server.json

server set profile=production

Which create this property

{
  "profile": "production"
}

Or you can specify it when starting the server like so:

server start profile=production

Default Profile

If a profile is not set, these rules are used to choose the default value:

• If there is an env var called environment, it is used to set the default profile (same convention as ColdBox MVC)

• If the site is bound on localhost, default the profile to "development". Localhost is defined as any IP address starting with 127.

• If neither of the above are true, the default profile is "production". This makes CommandBox servers secure by default.

Production profile

When profile is set to "production", the following defaults are provided:

• web.directoryBrowsing = false

• web.blockCFAdmin = external

• web.blockSensitivePaths = true

• web.blockFlashRemoting = true

Development profile

When profile is set to "development", the following defaults are provided:

• web.directoryBrowsing= true

• web.blockCFAdmin = false

• web.blockSensitivePaths = true

• web.blockFlashRemoting = true

None profile

When profile is set to "none", the following defaults are provided:

• web.directoryBrowsing= false

• web.blockCFAdmin = false

• web.blockSensitivePaths = false

• web.blockFlashRemoting = false

Customizing your profile

The defaults above only apply if you do not have am explicit server.json or server.defaults config setting. If you have an explicit setting, it will override the profile's default. Therefore, if you set the profile toproduction but set web.blockCFAdmin to false, your CF administrator will be public, but the remaining production defaults will still be applied. This allows even the default profiles to be customizable.

{
  "profile": "production",
  "web": {
    "blockCFAdmin": false
  }
}

Client Cert Authentication is common for internal government sites and involves the user installing a private certificate on their PC which the server asks the browser to send while negotiation the SSL connection. Client certs are a PKI cert, and often times are stored on a CAC which is a physical card issued to the user.

It is a requirement that the user hit your site via SSL in order for their browser to send their client cert OR for you to opt into accepting upstream client cert HTTP headers from a proxy or web server that is negotiating your SSL connection. It is recommended you configure your server to either disable HTTP or automatically redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS, which can be enabled with the web.SSL.forceSSLRedirect setting.

Accepting Client Certs

Configuring your SSL connection to accept or require client certs is covered in the SSL Client Cert portion of the docs. It's important to note configuring your server to accept SSL client certs and using these certs to authenticate a user two different things. It's possible to accept (or even require) your client (browser) to send a client cert in your web.ssl.clientCert settings but not use the authentication mechanism to protect parts of your site automatically. Any time a browser has sent a client cert, you will be able to access those details from the CGI and request scopes to do your own custom authentication. It is also possible to use Client Cert authentication but not have.

Client Cert Renegotiation

If you have configured your SSL Client Cert settings to accept, but not require client certs, this will allow a user to visit your site and not be challenged to provide a cert until they hit a page that your authPredicate kicks in and requires authentication. Only then will the user's browser prompt them for a cert.

server set web.security.clientCert.SSLRenegotiationEnable=true

SSL Renegotiation, when enabled, will disable HTTP/2 AND TLSv1.3. Both of these are not compatible with SSL Renegotiation.

Trust Upstream Client Cert Headers

Even if CommandBox is not using SSL directly, but is sitting behind a proxy or web server that takes care of negotiating the client cert, you can still use client cert auth to protect pages on your site if you configure CommandBox to trust any SSL_CLIENT_CERT HTTP request header.

server set web.security.clientCert.trustUpstreamHeaders=true

Only enable this setting if you TRUST your upstream proxy and you know it will overwrite any potentially-malicious SSL_CLIENT_CERT header from the client. SSL Certs received through this header will appear in the CGI and request scope and will be trusted the same as a client cert directly negotiated through CommandBox, but there will be NO trust chain verification. The header will be trusted blindly from your upstream server. This setting is off by default.

Enable Client Cert Authentication

You can enable the client cert auth mechanism like so:

server set web.security.clientCert.enable=true

Once enabled, all pages on your site will be secured if you have no authPredicate configured. Otherwise, only pages that match the predicate will be secured.

Validate Incoming Certs

By default, when you enable client cert auth, CommandBox simply checks that some client cert is present. Remember, your SSL settings require you to provide a Trust Store or a list of trusted root CAs and only client certs which are trusted by one of those CAs will be negotiated. This may be enough security for you right there if you are only allowing certs signed/trusted by a specific root cert. The client cert trust store requires you to explicitly provide every single CA you want trusted. It does NOT use your Operating system's trust store, nor does it use Java's trust store, nor does it use Lucee Servers.

If a request is authorized via a client cert, the Subject distinguished name of the client cert will be present in cgi.remote_user just like basic auth works.

Filter Subject Distinguished Name (SDN)

You can filter down a subset of client certs you want to be accepted for client cert auth by specifying a full or partial subject DN. This will not limit the certs which are negotiated and appear in the CGI scope. It will only limit the certs which are allowed to provide authentication for pages secured by the authPredicate. A Subject Distinguished Name (SDN) contains one or more parts known as Relative Distinguished Names, or RDNs. They follow an LDAP name RFC and look like this:

CN=Brad Wood, O=Ortus, OU=Dev

You may provide a single Subject DN ...

server set web.security.clientCert.subjectDNs="O=Walmart"

or an array of Subject DNs to filter on...

server set web.security.clientCert.subjectDNs=["CN=Brad","CN=Bob, O=Walmart"]

The RDNs can be in any order and you can supply a PARTIAL Subject DN. CommandBox will match all RDNs regardless of order or case sensitivity. You are not required to provide the full Subject DN, but all RDNs you provide MUST be present in the incoming cert or it will be rejected.

Filter Issuer Distinguished Name (IDN)

You can also filter down a subset of client certs you want to be accepted for client cert auth by specifying a full or partial Issuer DN. This will not limit the certs which are negotiated and appear in the CGI scope. It will only limit the certs which are allowed to provide authentication for pages secured by the authPredicate. An Issuer Distinguished Name (IDN) look and work the same as Subject DNs.

You may provide a single Issuer DN ...

server set web.security.clientCert.issuerDNs="CN=GeoTrust TLS RSA CA G1, O=DigiCert Inc, OU=www.digicert.com"

or an array of Issuer DNs to filter on...

server set web.security.clientCert.issuerDNs=["CN=My CA","O=Verisign"]

The RDNs can be in any order and you can supply a PARTIAL Issuer DN. CommandBox will match all RDNs regardless of order or case sensitivity. You are not required to provide the full Issuer DN, but all RDSs you provide MUST be present in the incoming cert or it will be rejected.

If you require more specific parsing of the cert pieces, then you’ll need to disable the built in security in CommandBox and write your own code that runs on every request and parses the CGI variables manually to decide if you accept the cert.

server.json Configuration

Here is a look at what your full config could look like in your server.json. Note this doesn't show the web.ssl.clientCert settings which are covered here.

{
  "web" : {
    "security" : {
      "realm" : "My Realm",
      "authPredicate" : "path-prefix( /admin )"
      "clientCert" : {
        "enable" : true,
        "SSLRenegotiationEnable":true,
        "subjectDNs" : "O=Ortus, OU=Marketing",
        "issuerDNs" : [
          "O=Verisign",
          "CN=Bob, O=Walmart",
          "CN=GeoTrust TLS RSA CA G1, O=DigiCert Inc, OU=www.digicert.com"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Baked-in Rules

CommandBox has a few baked in rules that you can apply ad-hoc or as part of a server profile.

• web.blockCFAdmin - Returns 404 error page for any Adobe CF or Lucee Server admin administrator paths

• web.blockSensitivePaths - Returns 404 error page for common config files such as box.json or .env

• web.blockFlashRemoting - Blocks all paths related to Flash and Flex remoting calls

Block CF Admin

This setting has three possible settings:

• true - Block ALL access to ColdFusion and Lucee admins

• false - Do not block anything

• external - Only block access not coming from localhost.

The exact rule activated when you set this property to true is:

The exact rule activated when you set this property to external is:

Block Sensitive Paths

This setting only allows true/false. This is a bit of a catch-all rule for any sort of paths that a user should never be able to make on production that could reveal information or access secret parts of your CF installation. When set to true, the following rules are activated:

When the profile is set to production, the following rule is also added which blocks the ColdFusion RDS access from CF Builder and access to TestBox runners:

If you need to legitimately access any of these paths, you'll need to turn off this setting and custom-add the rules that you want to keep. This setting is a convenience that adds several rules at once.

Block Flash Remoting

This setting only allows true/false. When set to true, the following rules are activated:

If you need to legitimately access any of these paths, you'll need to turn off this setting and custom-add the rules that you want to keep. This setting is a convenience that adds several rules at once.

Override just part of a baked-in rule

What if you want to go one step deeper? For instance, the blockSensitivePaths setting blocks a whole bunch of stuff all in one shot. An example might be wanting to open up JUST the RDS IDE integration for your developers, which funnels through the /CFIDE/main/ide.cfm path which you can see is blocked above.

The solution to this is quite simple and is all based on the ORDER in which your rules are processed. Built-in CommandBox rules are the last to process. This means that if you hijack the predicates with a custom rule FIRST, you can override the behavior of the built in rules. So, if we want to allow access to the /CFIDE/main/ide.cfm path, we just need to add a custom rule that matches that path and then aborts the predicate chain so no further rules fire.

Which gives you the following server.json

The done handler is what bypasses all subsequent rules for the request.

The Undertow-based web server built into CommandBox will only serve up static files if they are in a list of valid extensions. This is to prevent prying eyes from hitting files they shouldn't be able to access on your server.

The current list of valid extensions is:

If you have a common static file you need to serve, you can add your own custom extensions to the list like so:

CommandBox's server rules are based directly on the "Predicate Language" feature of JBoss Undertow. All of the official documentation for Undertow's predicate language applies to CommandBox. CommandBox doesn't limit the power of what Undertow provides at all. In fact, we give you some additional out-of-the box predicates and handlers you can use.

There are three concepts you need to understand and you'll be writing your own rules in no time.

• Handler - A wrapper around the request that takes some sort of action such as returning a status code or rewriting the request.

• Predicate - A conditional that evaluates to true or false. Used to Conditionally apply a handler

• Exchange Attribute - An abstracted way to refer to any piece of information about the request or response. Can include URL, query string, cookies, headers, or CGI variables.

Since the parsing of your rules is handled by Undertow, it is case sensitive in many areas and CommandBox cannot control this. The following must always be lower case:

• Predicate names

• Handler names

• Parameter names

• Keywords like and, or, else

The full undertow docs can be found here:

Handler

A handler will take action on the request. This can redirect the request, rewrite it, abort it, or modify attributes of the request such as setting an HTTP header or status code. If the predicate is omitted, the handler will always fire for all requests. Ex:

Common handlers:

• set() - Sets an exchange attribute (see below)

• rewrite() - Rewrite the request URL

• redirect() - Redirect to another URL

• header() - Sets an HTTP response header

• set-error() - Set HTTP response code and returns the corresponding error page

• ip-access-control() - Configure IP-based allow/deny rules (wildcards and IP ranges allowed)

• done - Skips remaining rules

• request-limit() - Limits concurrent requests

• restart - Restarts process back at start of predicate rule chain (combine with rewrite, etc)

• proxy() - Creates a proxy to a single host

• load-balanced-proxy() - Creates a round robin reverse proxy to a list of hosts

• allowed-methods() / disallowed-methods() - Enforces whitelist/blacklist of HTTP methods on current request

• Full list here:

A handler is called using the “name” from the docs and passing any required parameters. Params can be named or positional (if there is only one). Quoting values is only required if they have a space, comma or brace. The following are all equivalent:

Handler parameters that accept an array use the Java array literal syntax which is a comma-delimited list of values in curly braces.

More than one handler can be run by wrapping them in curly braces and using semicolons between them

A chain of handlers can be configured for the true AND false evaluation of a single predicate using the “else” keyword.

Predicates

A predicate is a condition that must be matched for the handler to kick in. If using path-based predicates on Windows, make sure to use the -nocase version for security rules since your file system is not case sensitive.

Common predicates:

• path()/path-nocase() - match the incoming request path

• path-suffix()/path-suffix-nocase() - match full file/folder names at the end of the path like file.cfm

• path-prefix()/path-prefix-nocase() - match full file/folder names at the start of the path like /lucee/admin

• is-file / is-directory - check if the %{RELATIVE_PATH} is an existing file or directory on disk. While relative path is the default, you can pass another exchange attribute to check as is-file( %{q,myQueryParam} )

• method() - Match the HTTP method

• regex()/regex-nocase() - Match a regular expression against any exchange attribute

• equals()/equals-nocase() and contains()/contains-nocase() - Do a text compare on any exchange attribute

• path-template() - match a path with placeholders like /foo/{bar} and the placeholders become variables for use in later predicates or handlers in the chain.

A predicate is called by placing parentheses after the name and passing in the required arguments as specified in the docs for that predicate. Quoting values is only required if they have a space, comma or brace. The following are all equivalent:

Complex conditions can be constructed with more than one predicate using the keywords “and” or “or”.

A predicate can be negated with the keyword “not”

Exchange Attributes

Exchange attributes are an abstraction Undertow provides to reference any part of the HTTP request or response. There is a textual placeholder that can be used in predicates and handlers that will be expanded in-place.

Common Exchange Attributes:

• %{REMOTE_IP} - Remote IP address

• %{PROTOCOL} - Request protocol

• %{METHOD} - Request method

• %{REMOTE_USER} - Remote user that was authenticated

• %{RESPONSE_TIME} - Time taken to process the request, in ms

• %{c,cookie_name} - Any cookie value

• %{q,query_param_name} - Any query parameter

• %{i,request_header_name} - Any request header

• %{o,response_header_name} - Any response header

• %{REQUEST_URL} - The requested URL

• %{RELATIVE_PATH} - The portion after the domain

• ${anything-here} - Any value from the predicate context (such as regex capture groups or path-template placeholders)

Use an exchange attribute like you would a variable as the parameter to a handler or predicate.

These are all equivalent:

If you've used mod_rewrite with Apache web server, you may be familiar with its Rewrite Map functionality, which allows you to create dynamic rewrites based on a text file of mappings. We have a similar feature built on Undertow's Server Rules that mimics Apache's feature.

Declare a Rewrite Map

There is a rewrite-map() handler which declares a named map file. It accepts an absolute path to the rewrite file, and case sensitivity flag.

The file format matches that of Apache's rewrite map functionality.

• Lines starting with # are a comment

• empty lines are ignored

• First space-delimited token becomes the key

• All remaining tokens become the value

• Lines with a single token default the value to an empty string

Here is an example file:

Watch disk for changes

If the date modified on the rewrite map file changes on disk, the data will be automatically re-loaded into memory.

Using the Rewrite Map

There are two handler/predicates you can use to interact with the rewrite map. Make sure these are in your list of Server Rules AFTER the map definition.

Check if a key exists

There is a rewrite-map-exists() predicate which will tell you if a given key exists in the map (Apache doesn't have this)

You can pair this predicate to only use the rewrite map if there is a match.

Get the value for a key from the map

In the example above, we're using a regex predicate to extract the text after /foo/ in the URL and then we reference that capture group as $[1] which we pass in as the key to the map. If there is no key in the map for that value, we default to 99.

So, given our example rule map file above, the url

would be rewritten to

CommandBox bundles some custom predicates and handlers to make your life easier.

The predicate cf-admin() will returns true if the incoming URL is to the Lucee or ColdFusion admin:

The handler block-external() blocks any request not from localhost with a 404 response code. You can pair this with any predicate you choose.

The handler block-cf-admin() blocks any request to the Lucee or ColdFusion admin with a 404 response code.

Build Your Own

You can build your own predicates and handlers by compiling java classes that implement the io.undertow.predicate.PredicateBuilder or io.undertow.server.handlers.builder.HandlerBuilder interfaces. If the proper service metadata is present in your jar's META-INF folder, undertow will automatically find and register your builders via Java's service loader.

This isn't super difficult but involves a few moving parts. If you're interested in writing your own handlers and predicates to use in your server rules, reach out on the mailing list and we'll walk you through it.

You can see the custom handlers and predicates documented above in our Runwar source code here:

Custom handlers:

Custom Predicates:

There are endless combinations of predicates and handlers you can apply to your apps. Here's an assortment of examples to get you going. Many of these are contrived, but are just mean to show the range of syntax and functionality.

Rewrite a URL:

Stop processing rules for a given request:

For all GET requests, set a response header called type with a value of get

If the incoming path ends with .css it will rewrite the request to .xcss and set a response header called rewritten to true.

Redirect all jpg requests to the same file name but with the png extension. The ${1} exchange attribute is used to reference the first regex group.

Set a request header for all requests that you can access in your CFML app just like a normal HTTP header.

Set a Cache-Control response header only for default index pages(ie: index.html or index.cfm) in any folder.

Set a response header for a specific file.

Match certain SES-style URLs and store the place holders (referenced as exchange attributes) into HTTP request headers.

In this example, hitting the server with /restart skips the first rule, the second rule rewrites the request and then restarts back at the first rule which fires the second time through.

Block access to a URL unless coming from a specific IP.

For more control over IP address matches, use the ip-access-control() handler.

Leading slash is NOT required. Both of these rules are the same:

It is not required to include .*_ at the end of a regex path unless you’ve set full-match=true _

Perform a regex a case insensitive search like so:

When attribute values are not quoted, all leading and trailing whitespace will be trimmed. The following are all the same:

But this example is different. The leading and trailing spaces will be preserved in the path string.

Basic MVC rewrite:

Add a CORs header to every request

Rewrite requests to a sub folder based on the domain

Custom SES URL rewrite that turns 6 digit product code into a query string. (If this rule goes in your server.json, you'll need \\ in front of the dollar sign to escape it twice. Once for the system setting expansion and once for the JSON file.)

Reject requests using an unknown host header.

Create reverse proxy to multiple hosts

Create reverse proxy to a single host

Customize URL that opens for server

By default, CommandBox will open your browser with the host and port of the server. You can customize the exact URL that opens. This setting will be appended to the current host and port.

server set openBrowserURL=/bar.cfm

Or you can completely override the URL if your setting starts with http://.

server set openBrowserURL=http://127.0.0.1:59715/test.cfm

And to test/debug your rules, start your server with the trace flag and tail the console output. Every hit in your browser will output several lines of debugging for each rule that is processed.

server start --trace --console 

With the custom rule above, you'd see something like this:

[DEBUG] requested: '/CFIDE/main/ide.cfm'
[TRACE] io.undertow.predicate: Path(s) [/CFIDE/main/ide.cfm] MATCH input [/CFIDE/main/ide.cfm] for HttpServerExchange{ GET /CFIDE/main/ide.cfm}.
[TRACE] io.undertow.predicate: Predicate [path( '/CFIDE/main/ide.cfm' )] resolved to true. Next handler is [done] for HttpServerExchange{ GET /CFIDE/main/ide.cfm}.
[TRACE] io.undertow.predicate: Predicate chain marked done. Next handler is [Runwar PathHandler] for HttpServerExchange{ GET /CFIDE/main/ide.cfm}.
[WARN ] responded: Status Code 200 (/CFIDE/main/ide.cfm)

Turning on SSL in your web server will will enable SSL without an approved SSL certificate. If you need an official certificate so you don't have to confirm your SSL connection you can add these entries

server set web.SSL.certFile=/path/to/dev_mydomain_ext.crt
server set web.SSL.keyFile=/path/to/dev_mydomain_ext.key
server set web.SSL.keyPass=myPass

The cert file and private key can be a PEM encoded file, or a DER-format binary file.

You can also use a PFX file (PKCS #8) by specifying it in the web.ssl.certFile setting and then put the password for the PFX file in the web.ssl.keyPass setting. You won't use the web.ssl.keyFile setting for a PFX since the private key is contained in the main file.

Generating a Server Cert

Although free certificates are available (e.g LetsEncrypt) this is not very convenient, because these certs are valid only for three months. Automatic renewal it is difficult if your dev site is not accessible from the web. For a few dollars a year (< 10) you can apply for a domain validated certificate from companies like Comodo, RapidSSL, Trustwave, Digicert, Geotrust and others or a reseller for these certs. For a domain validated certificate you need a valid domain which is under your control which means (depending on provider):

• mail is sent to domain owner

• or mail is sent to well-known administrative contact in the domain, e.g. (admin@, postmaster@, etc.)

• or you can publish a DNS TXT record

So, now you have a valid domain, you have to generate a SSL key and a SSL Certificate Signing Request. With the CSR you can apply for the certificate. Generating a key and CSR with openSSL

openssl req -utf8 -nodes -sha256 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout dev_mydomain_com.key -out dev_mydomain_com.csr

This will generate output and some questions, and will finally result in a key file named dev_mydomain_com.key and a certificate signing request (csr) named dev_mydomain_com.csr

You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:NL
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:YourState
Locality Name (eg, city) []:YourCity
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:YourCompany
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:IT
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:dev.mydomain.com
Email Address []:

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:

You have to enter Country Name, State and City. Organization Name is preferably the same as the domain owner. Organizational Unit Name will not be checked, so enter something simple such as ICT Common Name is the host name for your site, such as dev.mydomain.com You can skip Email Address and optional company name. For development you don't need a challenge password, which means your key file is NOT protected. But don't give this key to others or protect it with a challenge password. If you protect your key you have to server set web.SSL.keyPass=MyChallengePassword Now you have a CSR, which you can submit at your SSL provider. They will send you a certificate file (*.csr), and probably one or more intermediate certificates. Create a new my.csr file and copy everything from your certificate file into it, and append the intermediate certificate(s). Now you have a valid my.csr certificate file and a key file. Place both files in a location accessible for your CommandBox and enter the corresponding paths to web.SSL.certFile and web.SSL.keyFile

The start command will scan your system and find a random port that is not currently in use to start the server on. This ensures that multiple embedded servers can run at the same time on the same host without collisions. Ensure any redirects in your applications take the port into account.

Any Port in the Storm

You may want to set a specific port to use-- even port 80 if nothing else is using it. Pass the HTTP port parameter to the start command like so:

 start port=8080

It is also possible to save the default port in your server.json. Add a web.http.port property, or issue the following command:

server set web.http.port=8080
server show web.http.port

Now every time you start your server, the same port will be used.

If the server won't start or is unreachable, make sure it's port is free with your operating system's netstat command. On Unix-based OS's:

 $> netstat -pan | grep 80

HTTPS

You can start your server to listen for SSL connections too.

start SSLEnable=true SSLPort=443

server set web.SSL.enable=true
server set web.SSL.port=8080
server show web.SSL.enable
server show web.SSL.port

Setting SSL Enabled protocols

You can customize what SSL protocols your HTTPS listener will respond to with the following XNIO option. Supply a comma-delimited list of valid protocols.

server set runwar.XNIOOptions.SSL_ENABLED_PROTOCOLS=TLSv1.3,TLSv1.2

HTTP/2

HTTP/2 is a newer standard of HTTP supported by all modern browsers. HTTP/2 is enabled by default any time you are using an HTTP/HTTPS listener, however all major browsers will only allow the server to negotiate HTTP/2 over an HTTPS connection. HTTP/2 runs over the same port and only changes the exchange between the server and browser. You can disable HTTP/2 support like so:

server set web.http2.enable=false

If you want to confirm whether your browser is using HTTP/2, you can open your debugging tools and look at the network requests. You may need to add the "protocol" column in the UI. HTTP/2 will usually show up as something like "h2" in the protocol column.

AJP

You can start your server to listen for AJP connections too.

start AJPEnable=true AJPPort=8009

server set web.AJP.enable=true
server set web.AJP.port=8009
server show web.AJP.enable
server show web.AJP.port

AJP Secret

CommandBox's AJP listener (provided by Undertow) is already protected against the Ghostcat vulnerability. However, if you would like to set utp an AJP secret as well to ensure all requests coming into the AJP listener are from a trusted source, you can do by setting the web.ajp.secret property.

server set web.AJP.secret=mySecret

For this to work, you must also configure your AJP proxy in your web server to send the same secret! For requests received to the AJP listener which do not contain the secret, a 403 status code will be returned. You can customize the output of the 403 page via the Error Pages settings.

The AJP secret is implemented via a Server Rule. Feel free to add your own server rule instead of this setting if you want to customize how it works.

equals(%p, 8009) and not equals(%{r,secret}, 'mySecret') -> set-error(403)

A Gracious Host

Your application may rely on a specific host name other than the default of 127.0.0.1. You can set the host to anything you like, but you must add a host file entry that resolves your host name to an IP address assigned to your network adapter (usually 127.0.0.1)

 start host=mycoolsite.local

If you have multiple IP addresses assigned to your PC, you can bind the server to a specific IP using the host parameter.

 start host=192.168.10.15 port=80

A server configuration can only have one host entry. If you require your server to be available on multiple IP addresses of the machine it runs on, you can set the host to 0.0.0.0. This will effectively bind the server to all network interfaces (including local).

 start host=0.0.0.0 port=80

Or save in server.json

server set web.host=mycoolsite.local
server show web.host

Most modern browsers allow you to make up any subdomain you want before localhost such as mySite.localhost and will simply resolve them to localhost (127.0.0.1) even without a hosts file entry. CommandBox now supports using these domains and will bind your server's ports to localhost even without using the commandbox-hostupdater module.

server set web.host=mySite.localhost

You can configure the IP, Port, and hostnames for your servers in the bindings object, which is new in CommandBox 6.0. Whereas the legacy syntax defaults to binding to localhost, bindings will default to all IPs or 0.0.0.0 which is more consistent without mainstream web servers work.

The bindings object goes inside your web object in server.json and for Multi-Site servers, you can also specify bindings in each site as well.

Types of Bindings

There are 3 types of bindings, some of which have additional information that is specific to them

• HTTP

• SSL

  • HTTP/2 support

  • Server certs

  • Client certs

• AJP

  • AJP secret

Each type of binding is represented by an object of that name inside the bindings object. Everything is optional, so only specify what you need

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            // A single binding
            "HTTP" : {},
            // or an array of objects for multiple bindings
            "HTTP" : [],
            
            // A single binding
            "SSL" : {},
            // or an array of objects for multiple bindings
            "SSL" : [],
            
            // A single binding
            "AJP" : {},
            // or an array of objects for multiple bindings
            "AJP" : []
        }
    }
}

Creating a binding

Every binding has

• IP address (can be * or 0.0.0.0 which means All IPs)

• Port

• zero or more hostnames (An empty string or * will match all hostnames)

Note, hostnames are only really used for Multi-Site servers. If you only have a single site defined, all traffic will be served by that site regardless of the hostname of the incoming request.

Just the port

The default key to use is called listen. You can specify JUST a port, which will default to all IPs and all hostnames:

server set web.bindings.HTTP.listen=8080

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "HTTP" : {
                "listen" : "8080"
            }
        }
    }
}

Listen to IP:port

We can also specify the IP address as an IP or a * or 0.0.0.0 before the port delimited by a colon:

server set web.bindings.HTTP.listen=10.10.0.123:8080

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "HTTP" : {
                "listen" : "10.10.0.123:8080"
            }
        }
    }
}

Specify IP and Port separately

As an alternative to the listen key, you can specify IP and port keys. This can be handy if you plan to override just part of a binding via env vars.

server set web.bindings.HTTP.IP=10.10.0.123
server set web.bindings.HTTP.port=8080

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "HTTP" : {
                "IP" : "10.10.0.123",
                "port" : "8080"
            }
        }
    }
}

This syntax is mutually exclusive with the listen key.

Host names

Add in as many hostnames as you need as a comma-delimited list or an array

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "HTTP" : {
                "listen" : "10.10.0.123:8080",
                "host" : "site.com,site2.net"
                // Or...
                "host" : [
                    "site.com",
                    "site2.net"
                ]
            }
        }
    }
}

Multiple bindings of the same type

More than one HTTP binding would look like this, where the same object is used, but inside of an array.

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "HTTP" : [
                {
                    "listen" : "10.10.0.123:8080",
                    "host" : "internal-site.com"
                },
                {
                    "listen" : "*:80",
                    "host" : "site.com"
                }
            ]
        }
    }
}

AJP Secret

AJP bindings work the same as the HTTP binding examples above, but can have the addition of a secret key. All AJP connections to this port will need to come bearing the required secret.

server set web.bindings.ajp.listen=*:8009
server set web.bindings.ajp.secret=my-secret-value

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "AJP" : {
                "listen" : "*:8009",
                "secret" : "my-secret-value"
            }
        }
    }
}

HTTP/2 Support

Technically, HTTP/2 can be enabled on either HTTP or SSL bindings, but most browsers will only negotiate HTTP/2 over SSL.

server set web.bindings.SSL.HTTP2Enable=true

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "SSL" : {
                "listen" : "0.0.0.0:443",
                "HTTP2Enable" : true
            }
        }
    }
}

HTTP/2 is enabled by default. The legacy web.http2enable flag is still obeyed and will be applied to any bindings in that block unless otherwise overridden.

SSL Server Certs

To configure a single SSL Server cert, you can specify the following keys inside the binding:

• certFile - A PEM-encoded DER cert or a PFX file

• keyFile - THe Private key (not used for PFX)

• keyPass - The key pass or PFX pass. Blank if not used

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "SSL" : {
                "listen" : "0.0.0.0:443",
                "certFile" : "../certs/mycert.pem",
                "keyFile" : "../certs/mykey.pem",
                "keyPass" : "my-pass"
            }
        }
    }
}

SSL SNI Support

To configure multiple SSL certs on the same binding, use a certs array of objects containing the same keys above for each cert you want to specify.

{
    "web" : {
        "bindings" : {
            "SSL" : {
                "listen" : "0.0.0.0:443",
                "host" : "site1.com,site2.com,site3.com"
                "certs" : [
                    {
                        "certFile" : "../certs/site1Cert.pem",
                        "keyFile" : "../certs/site1Key.pem"
                    },
                    {
                        "certFile" : "../certs/site12Cert.pem",
                        "keyFile" : "../certs/site2Key.pem"
                    },
                    {
                        "certFile" : "../certs/site3Cert.pem",
                        "keyFile" : "../certs/site3Key.pem"
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    }
}

CommandBox will automatically use SNI (Server name Indication) to choose the correct cert to use when negotiating the SSL handshake based on the hostnames in each cert's

• Subject Common Name (CN)

• SAN (subject alternative names)

CommandBox will also handle SNI for wildcard certs as well.

SSL Client Certs

If using Client Cert authentication, you can also specify client certs for each SSL binding in an object called clientCert. This object can have the following child keys:

• mode

• CACertFiles

• CATrustStoreFile

• CATrustStorePass

• SSLRenegotiationEnable

{
  "web" : {
    "bindings" : {
      "ssl" : {
        "listen" : "0.0.0.0:443",
        "clientCert" : {
  	"mode" : "Requested",
  	"CACertFiles" : "rootCA.cer,anotherRootCA.cer",
  	"CATrustStoreFile' : "/path/to/cacerts",
  	"CATrustStorePass' : "changeit"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

For more information on how to configure and use client certs, check out our guide here.

If CommandBox is running a server behind a trusted proxy which is known to set the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header, then you can enable this setting for the remote IP in your CF engine's cgi scope to represent the upstream IP.

This is disabled by default. Otherwise a malicious client could send a fake X-Forwarded-For HTTP header to make it look like their traffic was coming from a trusted IP such as 127.0.0.1 to bypass any IP-based restrictions. Only enable this if you trust the proxy CommandBox is sitting behind. This should never be enabled if CommandBox is directly accessible on the internet.

Enable for all servers like so:

CommandBox allows you to create web aliases for the web server that are similar to virtual directories. The alias path is relative to the folder the server.json lives in, but can point to any folder on the hard drive. Aliases can be used for static or CFM files.

To configure aliases for your server, create an object under web called aliases. The keys are the web-accessible virtual paths and the corresponding values are the relative or absolute path to the folder the alias points to.

Here's what your server.json might look like.

Here's how to create aliases from the server set command:

info On Adobe ColdFusion servers, .cfm files will be run automatically from inside an aliases directory. On Railo and Lucee servers, you'll need to create a CF mapping that maps the alias name and path for .cfm files to work.

When using a CommandBox web server in production, you may wish to force your users to visit your site over HTTPS for security (and for HTTP/2 to work). However, it is desirable to still have your web server listening on HTTP so a user just typing your address in his browser can still connect to HTTP and then redirect.

Automatic HTTPS Redirection

CommandBox can be configured to redirect all HTTP traffic over to HTTPS with the following rule. The redirect will use a 301 status code and will include the URL and query string. The redirect will only fire for GET HTTP requests since redirecting a form POST would lose the form fields (request body).

Or in the server.json as:

If you want to customize how this redirect happens, you can skip this setting and manually add the following , which is basically what the setting above does automatically:

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)

If you want to go one step further, you can add a Strict-Transport-Security header to your site. This instructs the browser to automatically use HTTPS every time the user visits your site again. With an HSTS header, once your browser has cached the fact that you want HTTPS to always be used, even if the user just types your domain and hits enter, the browser will change it over to HTTPS before sending the request. This prevents having an initial HTTP request before the redirect kicks in.

HSTS headers can have a "max age" set, which tells the browser how long to "remember" to use HTTPS. This defaults to 1 year if you do not override the value. The max age is set in second. So 31,536,000 is one year. You can also set whether you want the HSTS header to apply to all sub domains of your site. The default is false for this setting.

Here is how you enable HSTS. Only the first web.SSL.HSTS.enable setting is required. The rest are optional.

Or in the server.json as:

Accepting a client cert as part of the SSL negotiation is a totally separate idea as using the existence of a client cert to authorize a given request. This is why the settings are in two different place in the server.json. You can have CommandBox ask (or require!) the browser to hand over a client cert, but all that does is set a bunch of CGI variables and servlet request attributes to document what the incoming cert is. The same client cert details can also be passed from an upstream proxy which negotiated the SSL connection and the details can be sent via HTTP headers to CommandBox to use for request authorization. Therefore, CommandBox can enable client certs at the SSL level and NOT enable request authorization, or it can disable its own SSL client cert negotiation but still perform request-level authorization based purely on upstream headers. The two features are not mutually dependent. To read how to have CommandBox automatically protect portions of your site based on a client cert, .

Client Cert Negotiation

To enable client certs to be negotiated by CommandBox SSL must be enabled, and then web.bindings.ssl.clientCert.mode can be set to one of the following options:

• NOT_REQUESTED - (default) SSL client authentication is not requested. (same as “ignore” in IIS)

• REQUESTED - SSL client authentication is requested but not required. (same as “request” in IIS)

• REQUIRED - SSL client authentication is required. (same as “require” in IIS)

Trust Store

CommandBox will NOT use your OS trust store nor your Java trust store, nor Lucee Server's trust store by default to establish a trust chain for incoming client certs. You must specify the trusted root CA certs that you want trusted. ONLY client certs trusted by one of these CAs will be accepted. Any intermediate certs must also be included. You can specify a comma-delimited list of absolute or relative paths OR an array of strings in the web.bindings.ssl.clientCert.CACertFiles setting that point to any number of public keys in a DER format (typically .crt or .cer extension)

or

If you have a large number of trusted CA’s, you can specify a JKS trust store (same format as Java’s cacerts file) along with the password for the store in the web.bindings.ssl.clientCert.CATrustStoreFile and web.bindings.ssl.clientCert.CATrustStorePass file. All CAs in that trust store will be used to validate incoming client certs.

server.json Configuration

Here's an example of what your config could look like:

If both a trust store AND individual trusted CA's are provided, CommandBox will use all of them.

Accessing the Client Cert

CGI Scope

When a valid client cert is present, the following CGI variables will be available to your CF code. If client certs are “requested”, these CGI variables will be wiped from any upstream sources so you can always trust them to be set from CommandBox, even if they are empty. There are several duplicate values since we are mimicking IIS, Apache, and Nginx client cert implementations for maximum compatibility.

• CGI.SSL_CLIENT_CERT - PEM-encoded cert (base 64 string)

• CGI.X_ARR_CLIENTCERT - PEM-encoded cert (base 64 string)

• CGI.SSL_CLIENT_S_DN - The Subject distinguished name of the client cert (CN=foo, O=bar, OU=baz)

• CGI.CERT_SUBJECT - The Subject distinguished name of the client cert (CN=foo, O=bar, OU=baz)

• CGI.CERT_KEYSIZE - The key size of the negotiated SSL connection

• CGI.CERT_SERIALNUMBER - The serial number of the cert in the format 91-7e-5f-a5-b2-20-a1-8b-4c-d0-40-3b-1c-a1-a8-58

• CGI.SSL_CLIENT_M_SERIAL - The serial number of the cert in the format 91-7e-5f-a5-b2-20-a1-8b-4c-d0-40-3b-1c-a1-a8-58

• CGI.SSL_CLIENT_I_DN - The Issuer distinguished name of the client cert (CN=foo, O=bar, OU=baz)

• CGI.CERT_ISSUER - The Issuer distinguished name of the client cert (CN=foo, O=bar, OU=baz)

• CGI.SSL_CLIENT_VERIFY - Matches Apache HTTP. Values will be "SUCCESS" or "NONE"

• CGI.SSL_SESSION_ID - Unique ID of the SSL connection

Note, some of these vars may not appear when you cfdump out the CGI scope, but will still be available when you specify cgi.var_name

Due to some differences between Adobe ColdFusion and Lucee Server, the above variables are loaded as HTTP Request Headers in Lucee and Servlet Request Attributes in Adobe ColdFusion. You can access them in either engine though through the CGI scope, but they may be case sensitive (always upper case)

Request Scope

The following servlet request attribute will also be set, which are accessible in a case sensitive manner from both Adobe and Lucee Server request scopes:

• javax.servlet.request.cipher_suite - The cipher suite of the SSL connection such as TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

• javax.servlet.request.key_size - The key size of the negotiated SSL connection

• javax.servlet.request.ssl_session_id - Unique ID of the SSL connection

• javax.servlet.request.X509Certificate - An array of java.security.cert.X509Certificate instances representing the certificate chain. These cert objects contain the same data as the PEM-encoded headers.

• javax.servlet.request.X509Certificate.issuerDNMap - A struct containing all the parts of the Issuer distinguished name. So for (CN=foo, O=bar) there would be a key for CN and O in the struct with respective values of foo, and bar. USE THIS instead of regex on the full Issuer DN because this map is generated by following the exact RFC for LDAP names.

• javax.servlet.request.X509Certificate.subjectDNMap - A struct containing all the parts of the Subject distinguished name. So for (CN=foo, O=bar) there would be a key for CN and O in the struct with respective values of foo, and bar. USE THIS instead of regex on the full Subject DN because this map is generated by following the exact RFC for LDAP names.

Access these request vars like so in CFML

Note using quoted string inside of bracket notation is required not only due to the periods in the variable name, but also to preserve the case-sensitivity of them.

Upstream SSL headers

All of the CGI and request vars above can also be present even if CommandBox’s built in client cert negotiation is not enabled if you have PEM-encode headers being sent from your upstream web server. However, you must explicitly tell CommandBox to trust these headers. Only do this if you trust the upstream proxy to always set trusted values into these headers. Enable this by setting the web.security.clientCert.trustUpstreamHeaders key by setting it to true. Them CommandBox will look for the SSL_CLIENT_CERT, SSL_CIPHER, and SSL_SESSION_ID HTTP request headers and associate those certs with the request just as though CommandBox had negotiated them itself.

Once you start using the embedded server for your development projects, you may wish to enable URL rewriting. Rewrites are used by most popular frameworks to do things like add the index.cfm back into SES URLs.

You may be used to configuring URL rewrites in Apache or IIS, but rewrites are also possible in CommandBox's embedded server via a which uses an xml configuration.

Commandbox also exposes a way to do url rewrites with the Undertow predicate language. If you missed the section, go there to learn how to do url rewrites, security, and http header modification in a nice text based language (non-xml).

Default Rules

We've already added the required jars and created a default rewrite that will work out-of-the-box with the ColdBox MVC Platform. To enable rewrites, start your server with the --rewritesEnable flag.

Now URLs like

can now simply be

In server.json

info The default rewrite file can be found in ~\.CommandBox\cfml\system\config\urlrewrite.xml

Custom Rules

If you want to customize your rewrite rules, just create your own XML file and specify it when starting the server with the rewritesConfig parameter. Here we have a simple rewrite rule that redirects /foo to /index.cfm

customRewrites.xml

Then, fire up your server with its custom rewrite rules:

In server.json

You can place your custom rewrite rule wherever you like, and refer to it by using either a relative path or an absolute path. CommandBox will start looking relative to where the server.json file resides.

or

Apache mod_rewrite-style rules

If you're coming from Apache, Tuckey supports a large subset of the mod_rewrite style rules like what you would put in .htaccess. You can simply put your rules in a file named .htaccess and point the web.rewrites.config property to that file.

Note: The name of the file matters with mod_rewrite-style rules. It must be called .htaccess. With xml rewrites, the filename is not important, only the content.

Here are some simple rewrite rules:

Please see the docs here on what's supported:

SES URLs

Your servers come ready to accept SES-style URLs where any text after the file name will show up in the cgi.path_info. If rewrites are enabled, the index.cfm can be omitted.

SES URLs will also work in a sub directory, which used to only work on a "standard" Adobe CF Tomcat install. Please note, in order to hide the index.cfm in a subfolder, you'll need a custom rewrite rule.

Logging

The Tuckey Rewrite engine has debug and trace level logging that can help you troubleshoot why your rewrite rules aren't (or are) firing. To view these logs, simply start your server with the --debug or --trace flags. Trace shows more details than debug. These options work best when starting in --console mode so you can watch the server logs as you hit the site. Alternatively, you can follow the server's logs with the server log --follow command.

Additional Tuckey Settings

The Tuckey Rewrite library that CommandBox uses under the hood. It has some extra settings that CommandBox allows you to use.

Watch rewrite file for changes

To monitor your custom rewrite file for changes without needing to restart the server, use this setting.

Internal Tuckey status page

To enable the inbuilt Tuckey status page, use the following setting. Note, debug mode needs to be turned on for the Tuckey status page to work. Also, you'll need to customize your rewrite file if you use a path other than /tuckey-status.

The web server in CommandBox is capable of enabling GZIp compression to reduce the size of HTTP responses. To enable GZip compress on your CommandBox server, add a web.gzipEnable setting in your server.json file.

server set web.gzipEnable=true

By default GZip compression will be applied to any file over 1500 KB in size. This is because 1500 KB or smaller can fit inside a single network packet, so there's no real benifit in zipping small files and it just causes CPU overhead.

If you wish to customize the file size or any other aspect of when GZip compression is applied, you can specify a custom Undertow Predicate that, when true, will trigger GZip for the request.

server set web.gzipPredicate="request-larger-than(500)"

Since ANY valid Undertow predicate language can be used here you can combined predicates to control exactly when GZip compression is applied. This example would apply GZip compression to any CSS files over 500 KB that were not in the /admin folder.

server set web.gzipPredicate="not path-prefix( admin ) and regex( '(.*).css' ) and request-larger-than(500)"

CommandBox will automatically set the content type in the HTTP response for common static file types. If you come across a file extention that doesn't have the correct type, you can set it like so in your server.json:

server set web.mimeTypes.log=text/plain

Which creates the following

{                            
    "web":{                             
        "mimeTypes":{                  
            "log":"text/plain"      
        }
    }
} 

In the above example, hitting a file such as foo.log would come back with a text/plain content type header.

This setting will override any <mime-mapping> tag in your web.xml file.

If you have custom jar files that you want to be available to a server, we recommend you use the this.javaSettings functionality in your Application.cfc to load those jars. If that isn't an option for you, or you want to include libs for a JDBC drivers then we offer a feature for you to specify a list of directories for which CommandBox will load jars from. This prevents you from worrying about getting your jars inside the WEB-INF/lib which starts fresh anytime you forget a server.

To load in your jar files, the first method is to use the libDirs parameter to the server start command.

server start libDirs=path/to/libs,another/path/to/libs

And the way to specify this in a portable manner in your `server.json` is like so:

server set app.libDirs=path/to/libs,another/path/to/libs
server start

Remember, paths to the start command are relative to your current working directory and paths in your server.json file are relative to the folder that the server.json file lives in. Absolute paths work the same everywhere.

Global Custom Libs

Have a bunch of servers and they ALL need the same jars, you can add your `libDirs` to the global server defaults config settings. Your global lib directories won't be overwritten by server-level config dirs, but instead appended to. Relative paths in your config settings are relative to the respective web root of the server. CommandBox will also ignore missing lib dirs to give you some flexibility in this.

config set servers.defaults.app.libDirs=/path/to/global/libs

The default welcome files are the usual index.cfm, index.htm, index.html, etc but you can override this with the welcomeFiles setting in your server.json by providing a comma-delimited list of files that you would like CommandBox to look for when a user hits a directory on a running server.

server set web.welcomeFiles='go.cfm,main.cfm,index.html'

This setting is a complete override of the defaults, so you need to specify the full list.

Directory Browsing

By default, a CommandBox server will not show the contents of a directory that doesn't have an index file. You can enable directory browsing for a single server with

server set web.directoryBrowsing=true

And you can enable it for all servers by default with

config set server.defaults.web.directoryBrowsing=true

By Default, your servers start using the same version of Java that the CommandBox CLI is using. For people needing to run Adobe ColdFusion 9, or who just want to do some testing on different JREs, you can point each of your servers at a custom JRE and CommandBox will use it when starting the server.

if you already have a JRE downloaded somewhere on your hard drive, you can manually point the server at it, or you can simply tell CommandBox which version of java you'd like, at it will automatically download that version of OpenJDK for your server to use (if it's not already downloaded)

Manual Java Config

Point CommandBox to an existing java install like so:

server set jvm.javaHome="C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_25"

To set the default version of Java for all the servers you start on your machine, use the global config setting defaults.

config set server.defaults.jvm.javaHome="C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_25"

Automatic Java Download

To let CommandBox take over and acquire Java for you, pass an installation endpoint ID to the start command

server start javaVersion=openjdk8

or set it in your server.json

server set jvm.javaVersion=openjdk8

or set a default for all servers

config set server.defaults.jvm.javaVersion=openjdk8

To review what possible IDs you can use to dial in your exact Java version, read the docs on our Java endpoint. You don't need to manually install Java CommandBox will do that for you. You just need to provide a valid ID so CommandBox knows what you want.

In some cases you might not want to interact with the command line manually to setup an environment, in particular in production setups. If you prefer to setup your server via a server.json file, the same syntax for valid IDs applies to setting your JVM ID:

{
    "JVM":{
        "javaVersion":"openjdk11_jre_x64_linux_hotspot_jdk-11.0.13+8"
    }
}

Java Namespace

To make it easier for you to manage the Java installations CommandBox makes for you, we have a namespace of commands you can use. The Java versions CommandBox installs automatically for your servers to use are stored in a folder under your CommandBox home. CommandBox manages this folder for you. You can change where the system Java installation go like so:

config set server.javaInstallDirectory=C:/path/to/JREs/

java search

Search the AdoptOpenJDk API for available versions of Java for you to use.

java search version=openjdk8

You can filter the version, jvm, os, CPU arch, type, and release. Most of those parameters default to match your local system. For instance, running this command on Windows will only return Windows versions. To open up the search, pass nothing to that filter.

java search version=openjdk8 os=

java list

List the installed Java installations for you to start servers with. If you have set a global default Java version it will be marked in the list.

java list

java setDefault

You may change the global default Java version for your servers with this command.

server java setDefault openjdk11

The ID follows the format from the Java endpoint. If the version you set as the default isn't installed yet, CommandBox will install it for you the next time a server starts or you can use the --install flag.

java install

You can pre-install a Java version so it's ready to go the next time you start a server with this command. This differs from the normal package install command in that it doesn't install to the current working directory, but into the core server JRE folder that CommandBox manages for you. Use the --setDefault flag to also set the newly installed Java version as the global default for all servers.

server java install openjdk11 --setDefault

java uninstall

You can remove a java installation so it doesn't take up space on your hard drive. Use the FULL ID that shows in the java list command to uninstall.

server java uninstall openjdk9_jre_x64_windows_hotspot_jdk-9.0.4+11

Note, the download will still be in your artifacts cache. Also, if you start a server up again that asks for a Java installation you've uninstalled, CommandBox will simply re-install it again.

The built in REST implementation in Adobe ColdFusion and Lucee is usually something you either love or hate. If you love it, you can enable it and customize the paths so it doesn't collide with your app's routes. if you hate it, you can turn it off. The REST servlet will be disabled unless you include a setting like so:

server set app.restMappings=/rest/*,/api/*

Note that the above setting will take over any URLs starting with /rest or api and you cannot use those routes or folders in your code. This is why it's handy to be able to modify or remove these. On a typical server, this is done via the web.xml, but CommandBox will do it all for you with just the setting above.

Here are some settings for performance tuning your servers

Max Requests

This setting limits how many requests will be passed through the Undertow listener to your app server. It defaults to 30. Please note that your web server connector and Adobe ColdFusion may also have their own max request setting.

server set web.maxRequests=100

Or as a global setting for all servers:

config set server.defaults.web.maxRequests=100

CommandBox uses JBoss Undertow to power it's lightweight servlet containers. Undertow also powers JBoss Wildfly and has a lot of configurable options, not all of which have first-class CommandBox settings. These low-level settings come in two different categories:

• Undertow Options - Settings that apply to the servlet and web server aspects of Undertow

• XNIO Options - Part of the underlying XNIO library which powers all low-level I/O in undertow

Undertow Options

Undertow has its own set of options which can be found here:

To set an XNIO option that CommandBox doesn't already expose with a first-class setting, you can set them into your server.json like so:

server set runwar.undertowOptions.ALLOW_UNESCAPED_CHARACTERS_IN_URL=true

You can also set global XNIO objects that will apply to all servers. Global options will be appended to server-level options.

config set server.defaults.runwar.undertowOptions.WORKER_NAME=myWorker

XNIO Options

XNIO (which is a refined version of NIO (Non-blocking I/O) has its own set of options that apply to the low level network transport functions it provides. You can find the full set of XNIO options here:

To set an XNIO option that CommandBox doesn't already expose with a first-class setting, you can set them into your server.json like so:

server set runwar.XNIOOptions.WORKER_NAME=myWorker
server set runwar.XNIOOptions.SSL_ENABLED_PROTOCOLS=TLSv1.3,TLSv1.2

You can also set global XNIO objects that will apply to all servers. Global options will be appended to server-level options.

config set server.defaults.runwar.XNIOOptions.WORKER_NAME=myWorker
config set server.defaults.runwar.XNIOOptions.SSL_ENABLED_PROTOCOLS=TLSv1.3,TLSv1.2

The following JVM Args are supported when starting the embedded server.

heapSize

You can set the max heap size the server is allowed to have (-Xmx) by passing the heapSize parameter to the start command. This parameter defaults to megabytes but you can specify any valid suffix.

In server.json

minHeapSize

You can set the starting heap size for the server (-Xms) by passing the minHeapSize parameter to the start command. This parameter defaults to megabytes but you can specify any valid suffix.

In server.json

Ad Hoc JVM Args

You can specify ad-hoc JVM args for the server with the JVMArgs parameter.

In server.json

JVM args can also be set an array of strings which prevents you from needing to escape or quote anything.

Or via the CLI like so:

Ad Hoc Runwar Options

You can specify ad-hoc options for the underlying Runwar library using the RunwarArgs parameter.

In server.json

Runwar args can also be set an array of strings which prevents you from needing to escape or quote anything.

Or via the CLI like so:

By default, the web server in CommandBox will follow the case sensitivity of the underlying file system. So, when on Windows /FiLe.TxT will still load an actual file called /file.txt. But on Linux, the case in the browser would need to match that of the file system. CommandBox allows you to force case sensitivity to be ON or OFF for a server, overriding the server's file system.

Note, this controls all access of static file, such as images, js, css, txt, etc as well as the initial lookup of .cfm files. It will also affect all internal usage of ServletContext.getRealPath( "/myPath.txt" ). It will NOT affect CFML file operations such as <CFFile>, <CFDirectory>, fileRead(), directoryList(), etc. It will also not affect core CF engine functionality such as creating CFCs or cfincluding CFM templates. Any code directly accessing the file system will use the file systems case sensitivity. And creating CFC instance is never case sensitive in CFML.

There is a new setting called web.caseSensitivePaths which has 3 possible values: true, false, or an empty string (default).

Forcing Case sensitivity

To force CommandBox's web server to be case sensitive, even on operating systems like Windows, use the following setting. There is a nominal performance benifit in doing this and can allow a Windows CommandBox server to mimic a Linux server for testing.

Forcing Case Insensitivity

To force CommandBox's web server to be case insensitive, even on operating systems like Linux, use the following setting. There is a nominal performance overhead in doing this and can allow a Linux CommandBox server to mimic a Windows IIS server. In this mode, CommandBox will use an internal cache of file system lookups to improve performance. If there are two files of the same name using different case, then you will get whatever file is found first.

You've always been able to add ad-hoc Java system properties for a server in your server.json via jvm.args in the format of -Dfoo=bar. There is also a top-level struct that is more readable which does the same thing:

No additional quoting or escaping is needed for spaces or special characters when using this method.

Set these programmatically like so:

Or set them globally for all servers in your config setting server defaults.

Keys will be merged, giving precedence to the server.json values.

For every server you start, there is a corresponding icon in your PC's system tray. In addition to the menu options you get out of the box, you can add in custom menu items. Menus are defined as nested arrays of structs, where each struct represents a single menu item. A menu item can be informational, have an action, or contain sub menus.

You can customize the tray menus for a server via 3 different methods:

• The trayOptions array in a specific server's server.json file. These menu additions will be specific to that server.

• The server.defaults.trayOptions config setting. These menu additions will be added to every server you start

• A custom CommandBox Module with an interceptor listening to the onServerStart interception point that modifies the serverInfo.trayOptions array.

Each menu item struct can have the following keys. Only label is required.

• label - This text appears on the menu and is the unique name

• image - A custom image file to use for the icon. Relative paths in the server.json will be relative to the JSON file Relative paths in the global config will be relative to the web root of the server.

• disabled - Boolean that greys out menu item and disables any action. Use for informational items.

• items - An array that contains a struct of sub menus.

• action - This controls what the menu item does when clicked. Possible options are:

  • openfilesystem - Opens a folder on the file system. Requires path to be set as well.

  • openbrowser - Opens a URL in your default browser. Requires url to be set as well.

  • stopserver - Stops the current server

  • run - Runs an arbitrary native command synchronously. Requires command to be set as well.

  • runAsync - Runs an arbitrary native command asynchronously Requires command to be set as well.

  • runTerminal - Runs an arbitrary native command in a new Terminal window. Requires command to be set as well.

• path - The file system path to use for the openfilesystem action.

• url - The HTTP URL to use for the openbrowser action

• command - The native command to run for the run, runAsync, or runTerminal actions.

• workingDirectory - The working directory to use for the run, runAsync or runTerminal actions.

• shell - Override the native shell to use on your OS. Defaults to your nativeShell config setting.

openfilesystem Example

openbrowser Example

stopserver Example

run Example

Commands executed by the run action will display their output in a popup window. The PID of the process is available if running on Java 9 or later. Also, there is a button to kill the process, but your mileage may vary. Only use this option to run command line apps that have console output you want to see.

runAsync Example

Commands executed by the runAsync action work like the run action except there is no windows to show you the output. This is what you want to use to fire off an app such as an IDE.

runTerminal Example

Commands executed by the runTerminal action work like the run action except a new terminal window is opened to run the command. The terminal windows stays open and you can continue to interact with it when the command finishes.

You can customize how your command is run by setting the optional workingDirectory and shell properties. If not set, the working directory will be the web root of the server.

Sub Menus

You can nest menus by supplying another array of structs in the items property of a menu. A menu cannot have an action and have sub menus.

Override Existing Menus

Menu items are layered "on top" of existing options whichs mean you can add new sub menu items to an existing top level menu. You can even override the action or image of a built-in menu. Menu items are registered in this order:

• Built-in menus

• Config setting server defaults

• server.json trayOptions

• onServerStart interceptor

This example server.json will add a new sub menu into the existing "Open..." top level menu.

There is no way to remove existing menu items via your config settings or server.json. To do that, you'd need to directly manipulate the trayOptions array in an interceptor.

You can customize the error page that CommandBox servers return. You can have a setting for each status code including a default error page to be used if no other setting applies.

Create an errorPages object inside the web object in your server.json where each key is the status code integer or the word default and the value is a relative (to the web root) path to be loaded for that status code.

This is what you server.json might look like:

You can set error pages via the server set command like this:

Accessing error variables

If your error page points to a CFM file, you can get access to the original path being accessed for 404s and the error that was thrown for 500s. To see all the request headers that are available, use the following snippet of code:

An example of getting the original missing path in a 404 in Lucee would look like this:

In Adobe ColdFusion, you can access ServletRequest Attributes directly via the CGI scope: