ColdFusion 9 cffile error Access is Denied - coldfusion

Question

I am getting the following error:
The cause of this exception was:
java.io.FileNotFoundException:
//server/c$/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5/login.cfm
(Access is denied).
When doing this:
<cffile action="copy"
destination="#copyto#\#apfold#\#applic#\#files#"
source="#path#\#apfold#\#applic#\#files#">
If I try to write to C:\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4\folder5\login.cfm, it works fine. The problem with doing it this way is that this is a script for developers to be able to manually sync files to their application folder. We have multiple servers for each instance that is randomly picked by BigIP. So just writing to the C:\ drive would only copy the file to the server the developer is currently accessing. So if the developer were to close out the browser and go right back in to make sure their changes worked, if they happen to get sent to a different server, they won't see their change.
Since it works with writing to C:\, I know the permissions are correct. I've also copied the path out of the error message and put it in the address bar on the server and it got to the folder/file fine. What else could be stopping it from being able to access that server?

Answer 1

It seems that you want to access a file via UNC notation on a network folder (even if it incidentally refers to a directory on the local c:\ drive). To be able to do this, you have to change the user the ColdFusion 9 Application Server Service runs on. By default, this service runs with the user "Local System Account" which you need to change to an actual user. Have a look at the following link to find out how to do this: http://mlowell.hubpages.com/hub/Coldfusion-Programming-Accessing-a-shared-network-drive
Note that you might have to add a user with the same name as the one used for the CF 9 service to all of the file servers.

Answer 2

If you don't want to enable ftp on your servers another option would be to use RoboCopy to keep the servers in sync. I have had very good luck using this tool. You will need access to the cfexecute ColdFusion tag and you will need to create share(s) on your servers.
RoboCopy is an executable that comes with Windows. You can read some documentation here and here. It has some very powerful features and can be set to "mirror" the contents of directories from one server to the other. In this mode it will keep the folders identical (new files added, removed files deleted, updated files copied, etc). This is how I have used it.
Basically, you will create a share on your destination servers and give access to a specific user (can be local or domain). On your source server you will run some ColdFusion code that:
Logically maps a drive to the destination server
Runs the RoboCopy utility to copy files to the destination server
Then disconnects the mapped drive
The ColdFusion service on your source server will need access to C:\WINDOWS\system32\net.exe and C:\WINDOWS\system32\robocopy.exe. If you are using ColdFusion sandbox security you will need to add entries for these executables (on the source server only). Here are some basic code examples.
First, map to the destination server:
<cfexecute name="C:\WINDOWS\system32\net.exe"
arguments="use {share_name} {password} /user:{username}"
variable="shareLog"
timeout="30">
</cfexecute>
The {share_name} here would be something like \\server\c$. {username} and {password} should be obvious. You can specify username as \\server\username. NOTE I would suggest using a share that you create rather than the administrative share c$ but that is what you had in your example.
Next, copy the files from the source server to the destination server:
<cfexecute name="C:\WINDOWS\system32\robocopy.exe"
arguments="{source_folder} {destination_folder} [files_to_copy] [options]"
variable="robocopyLog"
timeout="60">
</cfexecute>
The {source_folder} here would be something like C:\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4\folder5\ and the {destination_folder} would be \\server\c$\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4\folder5\. You must begin this argument with the {share_name} from the step above followed by the desired directory path. The [files_to_copy] is a list of files or wildcard (*.*) and the [options] are RoboCopy's options. See the links that I have included for the full list of options. It is extensive. To mirror a folder structure see the /E and /PURGE options. I also typically include the /NDL and /NP options to limit the output generated. And the /XA:SH to exclude system and hidden files. And the /XO to not bother copying older files. You can exclude other files/directories specifically or by using wildcards.
Then, disconnect the mapped drive:
<cfexecute name="C:\WINDOWS\system32\net.exe"
arguments="use {share_name} /d"
variable="shareLog"
timeout="30">
</cfexecute>
Works like a charm. If you go this route and have not used RoboCopy before I would highly recommend playing around with the options/functionality using the command line first. Then once you get it working to your liking just paste those options into the code above.

Answer 3

I ran into a similar issue with this and it had me scratching my head as well. We are using an Active Directory along with a UNC path to SERVERSHARE/webroot. The application was working fine with the exception of using CFFILE to create a directory. We were running our CFService as a Domain account and permissions were granted onto the webroot folder (residing on the UNC Server). This same domain account was also being used to connect to the UNC path within IIS. I even went so far as to grant FULL Control on the webroot folder but still had no luck.
Ultimately what I found was causing the problem was that the Inetpub Folder (parent folder to our webroot) had sharing turned on but that sharing did not include 'Read/Write' sharing for our CFService domain account.
So while we had Sharing on Inetpub and more powerful user permissions turned on for Inetpub/webroot folder, the sharing permissions (or lack thereof) took precedence over the more granular webroot user security permissions.
Hope this helps someone else.