UPDATE (9/11/00): I no longer work for the company that uses coldfusion, so i will most likely never again work on this project. I will, however, update this web page if people submit information on what they have done to make it work.
For some reason my old instructions on how to do this disapeared. i don't remember what they were at all, and i haven't worked on this in a while, so my memory is a bit crufty in this area, however i will do the best i can for now, and i will continue my efforts in the near future (maybe a week from now, middle of july latest)

Running Coldfusion for Linux on FreeBSD

ok, quick and dirty instructions:

you need RedHat 6.x emulation, this comes bundled with FreeBSD 4.0 or you can add it into 3.4, but i've lost the link, and i never did get that working anyway. i've been using 4.0 and it works.

this probably depends on your installation of apache, but i installed apache by going to /usr/ports/www/apache13 and typing 'make install'. if you installed it the same way i did, follow the following directions, if you installed it in another way, or in another path, you're on your own on this part.

1) ln -s /usr/local/libexec/apache /usr/local/sbin/libexec
2) when coldfusion asks you where you have apache installed, type in /usr/local/sbin

the preceding instructions are related to the fact that Apache installs to /usr/local/apache and the modules live in /usr/local/apache/libexec. the ports version of apache installs the old traitional way.

run cfinstall, if the last lines look like the following, it failed: 

Initializing ColdFusion Settings...
Error: performing semget() on ColdFusion Registry semaphore:File exists
Abort trap
ERROR: Unable to initialize the Cold Fusion settings.
ERROR: Aborting installation.
if this happens, run ipcs, and delete the sem and mem that coldfusion has created with ipcrm. re-run cfinstall and it should work.

if the last lines look like this 

starting ColdFusion servers...
Error: performing semget() on ColdFusion Registry semaphore:File exists
Abort trap - core dumped
ERROR: Start script did not return success
ERROR: ColdFusion servers NOT running.
use ipcs and ipcrm to remove the shared stuff and run install_dir/coldfusion/bin/start. it will complain that the evaluation has expired. you now have a running coldfusion server, only with a broken license.
looking briefly into the license problem, i attempted to run CFIDE since the coldfusion server _is_ running, but it wants to download index.cfm which leads me to believe that the coldfusion apache module doesn't work. it just occured to me that the coldfusion.so library is precompiled for linux and apxs built an apache module under FreeBSD. hmmm, that'll never work. looks like i'll have to install a copy of apache for linux. for another day, i've done enough right now. i also have to look into the license issue, because i tried changing the cf.registry to have an actual serial number, but i still get the evaluation has expired message. what happens here, is the linux-centric part of the install script doesn't allow us to enter a license (at least it continues now, before it fell over) i'll look into re-writing that, but i have to get coldfusion working before i dive into that.

License Update:

John Straiton has come up with a hacked workedaround for the license problem. It isn't the ideal solutions, but it seems to get us closer to working than before, here is his email.

send all comments, typos, or progress you have made on this to wonko@tmok.com and i will make the appropriate changes here.