Whether you are new to Docker, a Docker expert, or even sticking with a traditional server setup, using environment variables will make your code more dynamic, more portable, and more ready for your eventual transition to Docker (or whatever comes next). Come learn how to use them in CFML, Docker, and the various tools around these technologies.

The Ortus Solution roadshow continues, we'll keep bringing you free webinars and blog posts through the month of September. If you have tuned in already, you might have learned what Docker is, why you could / should use it, and then maybe a little of how to use it. If the first part of this mini series on First Docker Compose we saw how ou can spin up a Docker container pretty easily, with a command or two, but usually, we work with multiple servers. Docker-Compose makes that easier, it doesn't have to be too confusing. We are building on top of part 1, where we spun up a CFML Server container by itself, and then we added a simple MySQL Server. Next we're going to add Nginx in front of the CFML Server container, and then we'll do more with the MySQL server, like add a database, and then seed it ( preload it ) with data to get things rolling. That is what we're going to look at today.

The roadshow has just started, and you might have learned what Docker is, why you could / should use it, and then maybe a little of how to use it. You can spin up a Docker container pretty easily, with a command or two, but usually, we work with multiple servers. Configuring that might be confusing at first... you might wonder, if i spin up 3 containers, how do they know how to find each other, and other questions like this, are easily solved, with Compose files. That is what we're going to look at today.

On the heels of and in conjunction with the 3.7.0 release of ContentBox, we are pleased to announce the 3.7.0 release of CommandBox ( a happy coincidence that the version numbers of the two are the same! ).

This release provides major updates in security and functionality to the CFConfig module, which may be used to configure CFML servers at runtime. The settings and environment variables, which were previously handled by the bash script used to start the image, are now delegated to CFConfig. You can read more on using environment variables for CFConfig here.

At this year's CF.Objective I had the privilege to present on CommandBox and how to create packages and publish them in our community website www.forgebox.io. It is imperative for the ColdFusion (CFML) community to start leveraging CommandBox and ForgeBox in order to create applications, libraries and share cool code!

CommandBox + ForgeBox : Code, Package, Share, Go!

CommandBox is the ColdFusion (CFML) CLI and package manager for modern applications. In this session, we will show you how to create, find and even publish packages to our centralized cloud repository, ForgeBox.

We've been using our CommandBox Docker images for awhile now for multi-tier development and deployment. We've also received a lot of great feedback from the community that has helped to expand the power and flexibility of the those images in orchestrating CFML server environments.

One important aspect of non-development deployments of applications on the CommandBox image, is the need to warm up the server by seeding the CFML engine file system and configuration before the application is deployed in its target environment/tier. Other than the default Lucee 4.5 engine, which is what CommandBox, itself, runs on, any CFML engine specified in your application's server.json file is downloaded upon server start. Depending on the latency of your Docker environment's connection, this can mean that a bare-bones first run of your application can take minutes to start up, rather than seconds. For obvious reasons, this is not desirable.

We are excited to announce the general availability of CommandBox 3.7.0.  This is another minor release for CommandBox, but comes packed with some major new features.  If you want a more comprehensive overview of what's been added, read through this post where we put out our call for release candidate testing.  Here's a high level overview of what's gone into this latest release.

We've got a new release candidate of CommandBox ready for you to test that's just teeming with new features!

CommandBox 3.7.0-rc is available now for a final round of testing before its final release. There been 51 tickets completed in the last 3 months that bring enhancements to the CLI, TestBox integration, web servers, package management, plus some new stuff called Task Runners!

Don't know what a container is? Continue down and we will show you what it's all about!

Using "testbox watch" to Automate Your Testing Suite

CommandBox> upgrade --latest