| [...] i was just wondering if you or anybody else could clarify this up for me? 1. the browser requests a page from the webserver 2. if the page ends with a .cfm or .cfc ect. The webserver will request the file from the webapplication server 3. from there the info will get sent back to the webserver and then to the browsser? |
Yup. That's pretty much it.
So this should clarify why you need to have the CF server in your live environment, as well as in your dev environment, yeah?
for the application server should i use apache because it is free and can be used from mac pc and various other operating systems? |
All things being equal: yes. However you'll probably need to look at what your hosting provider of choice offers. IIS is perhaps slightly easier to use, but there's not much in it. And, of course, as you say Apache will run on anything. IIS binds you to Windows. I use Windows on my dev machine @ home, and I use both Apache and IIS, I guess (IIS for Bluedragon.NET, Apache for Open BlueDragon... and just the build-in JRun web server for my CF development). Left to my own devices, I'd use Apache.
and also what do i upload my coldfusion website to? at the moment the coldfusion website is stored in the c drive/ coldfusion / wwwroot/ mywebsite/ |
The answer is "it depends". Most people seem to just bung all their CF files in the web root, like they would HTML files. Personally, I only like to have the files people actually need to browse to to be exposed in the web root, and I keep the bulk of my CF files outside the webroot. But it depends on how you architect your app, and at least to start with, I think perhaps just putting them in your web root is fine. You can kinda consider the CFM files to be analogous to HTML files... for the user to be able to browse to products.cfm, products.cfm needs to be web browseable, and accordingly in your web root, just as if it was products.html.
and also how does my yearly webhosting i have brough come into this? |
Well they have to host CF for a start. Do they? CF hosting is a service these hosting companies might offer just like basic website hosting, or PHP hosting or whatever. Except it's far less common to have a hosting company provide CF hosting though. Best you find out if they do it before you get too much further down the road on this mission, I reckon.
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Adam