Problems with CF11 Monitor

[Merchlinski]

My department has recently installed CF11 on a new redhat server.  I can't get the monitor to work correctly.  I've enabled Monitoring and Profiling and the Monitoring Server.  I can get the monitor to launch and am able to login.  However, it doesn't show any requests at all.  In addition, any changes I make within the monitor (such as monitoring alerts or # past jobs to list that are longer than # seconds) don't save.  Any thoughts?  I've been able to set the alert configurations through the API, but they dont' seem to work.

[Merchlinski]

Additional information:

I don't see the 3 Start buttons at the top, right corner buttons of the monitor.  Refreshing the browser does not allow them to appear.   Using Wireshark does not turn up any problems in communicating with the server.

Some errors that I've found in logs:

• /opt/coldfusion11/cfusion/logs/monitor.log - /opt/coldfusion11/cfusion/wwwroot/CFIDE/administrator/monitor/smresource_en.xml (No such file or directory)

      If I go to this directory, there is a smresource_en.cfm file.  I pulled out the xml and created smresource_en.xml.  The error no longer appears, but there is no apparent change in the monitor.

• /var/logs/http/ssl_error_log -  File does not exist: /local/web/app-dev/2f CFIDE, referer: https://srv-webdev-01.phs.psu.edu/CFIDE/administrator/navserver.cfm

     /local/web/app-dev is set up as the document root.

[Charlie Arehart]

@Bigdadi, good to hear that you tried to refresh your browser. That's usually the first "trick" to try when the 2 start buttons don't appear.

Another thing is to make sure that the CF Admin page for "flex integration" shows "flash remoting support" is enabled. That's required for the server monitor.

Finally, you mention using wireshark to confirm that there are "no problems communicating to the server", but rather than use that, I would propose you use a browser tool like those now built into all the browsers (or firebug, fiddler, charles, and the like). Those will let you see both the nature of communication between the browser and server (whether requests out of the browser are happening, and their responses, but more important you'll see the status code of the responses and can even see the actual response). You may see that there is some part of the communication that is NOT happening as it's supposed to.the CF Server  instance,

For instance, it's not at all unusual for things to go wrong because something on the server has been configured to be blocked (for security reasons, like the CFIDE directory or one of its subfolders) that the monitor is trying to talk to, but can't. One of these tools should help you see that, perhaps in a way WireShark does not. I point to more info on such tools in a blog entry I've done in the past: http://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2012/3/20/builtin_browser_proxy_sniffer_tools

And since the CF Server Monitor does in fact use Flash Remoting, you may find you need to go specifically to a tool like Charles (commercial, with free trial) which is among the few that has specific Flash Remoting support so that you can see the AMF messages being sent back and forth. But try one of the simpler ones first. I think you may find your answer. And if you don't, you can either share here what you find or if this becomes more urgent you can hire people (like myself) to help. I point to a list of such consultants at cf411.com/cfconsult.

(@Bigdadi, are you the @Aimee who raised this same issue as a blog comment in the Adobe CF blog? If so, you'll know that I am repeating here some links there, but I'm doing it for the sake of any readers here who didn't see that. And of course you can tell that I have added still more info here, to help you and any other readers.)

[Merchlinski]

@Charlie - Yes, this is still Aimee.  I've downloaded Charles and found that the response header is showing an Unable to invoke CFC - The current user is not authorized to invoke this method error.  I've changed the Administrator Security to No authentication needed (temporarily - this is a dev server), but that didn't change anything.   I am able to invoke the methods through adminapi.servermonitoring though (was able to before and after the security change).

Also - Flash remoting is enabled.

[Merchlinski · Accepted solution]

After much headbanging, I've realized that 'Unable to invoke CFC' error was a result of trying to launch the monitor over SSL.  I've added -Dcoldfusion.disablejsafe=true to the jvm.config file and restarted CF.  If I launch the monitor from https://srv-webdev-01/administrator/, it opens the URL for the monitor as http://srv-webdev-01:5500/CFIDE/administrator/monitor/launch-monitor.html.  It then tells me I'm logged out of the CF Server and makes me authenticate.  When I do, the start buttons are missing.  If I login to http://srv-webdev-01/administrator and launch the monitor, it works.   Once I'm logged into the administrator under both http and https, I can launch the monitor from either successfully.

Is there a way to only have to authenticate to https?