Overview of Administering ColdFusion Express

The ColdFusion Express Administrator is the administrative interface of ColdFusion Express Server. ColdFusion Express Server is the component of the overall ColdFusion Web application development system that processes ColdFusion application pages and returns HTML pages to Web clients.

The Administrator provides a browser-based interface allowing you to manage server performance, add and configure ColdFusion data sources, schedule pages, manage log files, and so on. For any ColdFusion development project, some level of administration is generally necessary to set up ColdFusion Server for your application.

Accessing the Administrator

All administrative operations are performed using the ColdFusion Express Administrator.

The Administrator is a Web application you use to configure ColdFusion Express Server, and to set various server options. The Administrator includes options for managing a wide range of server settings.

You can launch the Administrator from the ColdFusion Express program group in Windows by selecting the ColdFusion Express Administrator icon, or by opening the Administrator URL in your browser. If ColdFusion Server is installed locally, you can open the following URL:

Where hostname is the name of the system on which ColdFusion Server is installed. If you are using ColdFusion Administrator security, you will be prompted for a password. If your Web server is providing security, access to the Administrator pages is governed by the permissions defined in your Web server.

Once you have launched the Administrator, you have two menu choices: Home and Server. The Home menu provides the following information.


ColdFusion Administrator Home Menu
Category	Description
Welcome	The Welcome page to ColdFusion Express Server.
Documentation	The main documentation page, which contains links to all of the ColdFusion Express Server documentation.
License Agreement	The ColdFusion Express Server license agreement.
Release Notes	ColdFusion Express Server release notes.
Support	A page that lists the types of support available to ColdFusion Express Server customers.
Upgrading	This page provides information about upgrading to ColdFusion Server Enterprise and ColdFusion Server Professional.
Version Info	This page provides information about the version of ColdFusion Express.

It is the Server menu that allows you to configure the ColdFusion Server, and set various server options. See the next chapter for more information about the Server menu and how to use the administrator to configure ColdFusion Express and change settings.

Initial ColdFusion administration tasks

Immediately after installing ColdFusion Server, you'll probably want to perform some of the following configuration tasks:


Initial Administrative Tasks
Add, configure, and verify ColdFusion data sources You use the Administrator to create ColdFusion data sources for your applications. You can configure ODBC data sources to access your databases. For more information about data sources, see Chapter 14, Managing Data Sources.
Configure ColdFusion log file options ColdFusion produces a number of different log files you can use to monitor server errors and activity. For more information, see Chapter 13, Configuring ColdFusion Express Server.