ColdFusion (2021 release) Update 21

Security recommendations

For all security updates, Adobe recommends applying the security configuration settings outlined on the ColdFusion Security page and reviewing the respective Lockdown guides.  

• ColdFusion 2023 Lockdown Guide
• ColdFusion 2021 Lockdown Guide

ColdFusion (2021) Update 21 includes important security fixes that mitigate vulnerabilities related to arbitrary file reads, code execution, privilege escalation, and security feature bypass.

The update also upgrades the underlying Tomcat engine to version 9.0.106 and resolves several issues reported in earlier updates.

View the security bulletin, APSB25-69, for more information.

New JVM flag in this update

• -Dcoldfusion.xmlrpc.allowExternalEntities

View JVM arguments in ColdFusion (2023 release) for more information on the flags.

OEM upgrades

Changes to remote methods

The remote method changes done in the previous update are now limited to remote CFC calls only and do not apply to regular (local) method invocations.

Bug fixes in this update

• The lockdown installer used a ColdFusion component (lockdown.cfc) located in the CFIDE/lockdown directory to complete the setup process. Due to security changes introduced in a previous update, the installer worked unexpectedly if remote methods in the component were blocked during execution.
• In the previous update, using returnformat and queryformat in remote methods resulted in errors due to changes requiring all arguments to be explicitly declared.
• The warning message in log file contains a typo. It says "bytecodeexectuionpaths" instead of "bytecodeexecutionpaths".
• On non-Windows systems, editing the local PDF service from the ColdFusion Administrator removes the service because the IP address 127.0.0.1 is not included in the jetty/etc/jetty-ipaccess.xml allowed list. After installing ColdFusion and applying the latest update, navigating to the PDF Service page and modifying the local configuration results in the service being deleted instead of updated. The expected behavior is for the configuration to be saved without removing the service. 
• The CAR (ColdFusion Archive) build process fails if the cfusion/packages directory does not exist, as the CAR file must be placed specifically within this folder. Instead of automatically creating the missing directory, the build terminates with an error. The expected behavior is for the process to create the packages folder if it's not already present. 
• In some cases, scheduled tasks are deleted if the "Publish to a log file" option is enabled. The issue occurs after creating a scheduled task with logging enabled and applying the latest update. Even after adding the exception and restarting ColdFusion, the deleted task isn't restored.
• In some cases, you are unable to generate an encrypted PDF. An error "NoClassDefFoundError: org.bouncycastle.asn1.DEREncodable" appears in logs and PDF generation aborts with a Java class‐loading error for BouncyCastle.
• After installing and then uninstalling the last update, the cfspreadsheet function no longer works. The C:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\lib\xalan.jar was removed during the uninstallation process, even though this JAR file was not added or modified as part of the original installation.
• <cfdocument> failed to embed registered fonts in generated PDF files. Even after registering the fonts, the output PDF defaulted to using MS Mincho, which was not embedded. This resulted in missing text, particularly for languages like Japanese on systems such as Linux that do not include the MS Mincho font. With this fix, registered fonts are now properly embedded in the PDF output.

Known issues in the release

• After installing the previous update and loading a page that relies on ORM, an exception appeared. If the same issue appears after installing update 21, then as a workaround, follow the steps:
  • Navigate to the <cfusion>/lib directory and open the exportpackages.txt file.
  • Remove the entry javax.persistence from the exportpackages.txt file.
  • Save the file.
  • Stop the server, clear Felix cache, and restart the server.
• If you are on the latest ColdFusion update and:
  • You already have multiple instances configured, and
  • You attempt to create a new instance

You may encounter issues with the new or existing instances failing to start correctly. As a workaround, delete the htmltopdf.properties (<cf_home>/cfusion/lib) file for each instance, and restart ColdFusion.

• After applying the update, you may encounter an error message on pages that use cfmail. View the discussion for more information. As a workaround:
  • Stop Coldfusion
  • Delete the Felix cache (cfusion/bin/felix-cache)
  • Restart Coldfusion

ColdFusion JDK flag requirements

COLDFUSION 2021 (version 2021.0.0.323925) and above

For Application Servers   

On JEE installations, set the following JVM flag, "-Djdk.serialFilter= !org.mozilla.**;!com.sun.syndication.**;!org.apache.commons.beanutils.**;!org.jgroups.**;!com.sun.rowset.**; !com.mysql.cj.jdbc.interceptors.**;!org.apache.commons.collections.**;", in the respective startup file depending on the type of Application Server being used.

For example:   

• Apache Tomcat Application Server: edit JAVA_OPTS in the ‘Catalina.bat/sh’ file   
• WebLogic Application Server:  edit JAVA_OPTIONS in the ‘startWeblogic.cmd’ file   
• WildFly/EAP Application Server:  edit JAVA_OPTS in the ‘standalone.conf’ file   

Set the JVM flags on a JEE installation of ColdFusion, not on a standalone installation.  

Prerequisites

1. On 64-bit computers, use 64-bit JRE for 64-bit ColdFusion.
2. If the ColdFusion server is behind a proxy, specify the proxy settings for the server to get the update notification and download the updates. Specify proxy settings using the system properties below in the jvm.config for a stand-alone installation, or corresponding script file for JEE installation.
   • http.proxyHost
   • http.proxyPort
   • http.proxyUser
   • http.proxyPassword
3. For ColdFusion running on JEE application servers, stop all application server instances before installing the update.

Installation

ColdFusion Administrator

In Package Manager > Packages, click Check for Updates in Core Server.

After it detects an update, click Update. The core package gets updated with the latest update.

All installed packages that needs an update get updated.

Restart ColdFusion for the changes to take effect.

Install the update in offline mode manually

1. Download the hotfix installer from the link.
2. Download the packages zip file from this link and extract its contents to a location accessible to all ColdFusion server instances.
3. Update "packagesurl" in cfusion/lib/neo_updates.xml of cfusion and all its child instances to point to <InstallerReposityUnzippedPath>/bundles/bundlesdependency.json present inside the downloaded folder.

If the core server hotfix installation is successful and if there are errors or issues with packages, packages can be installed/updated from the package manager client(cfusion\bin\cfpm.bat|cfpm.sh).

You must have privileges to start or stop ColdFusion service and full access to the ColdFusion root directory.

• Windows: <cf_root>\jre\bin\java.exe -jar <InstallerReposityUnzippedPath>\bundles\updateinstallers\hotfix-021-330446.jar
  
• Linux-based platforms: <cf_root>/jre/bin/java -jar  <InstallerReposityUnzippedPath>/bundles/updateinstallers/hotfix-021-330446.jar

Ensure that the JRE bundled with ColdFusion is used for executing the downloaded JAR. For standalone ColdFusion, this must be at, <cf_root>/jre/bin.

Install the update from a user account with permission to restart ColdFusion services and other configured webservers.

For further details on manually updating the application, see the help article.

Post installation

Uninstallation

To uninstall the update, perform one of the following:

• In ColdFusion Administrator, click Uninstall in Server Update > Updates > Installed Updates.
• Run the uninstaller for the update from the command prompt. For example, java -jar {cf_install_home}/{instance_home}/hf_updates/hf-2021-00021-330446/uninstall /uninstaller.jar

If you can't uninstall the update using the above-mentioned uninstall options, the uninstaller could be corrupted. However, you can manually uninstall the update by doing the following:

1. Delete the update jar from {cf_install_home}/{instance_name}/lib/updates.
2. Copy all folders from {cf_install_home}/{instance_name}/hf-updates/{hf-2021-00021-330446}/backup directory to {cf_install_home}/{instance_name}/

Connector configuration

Packages updated