Webmaster Forum / ColdFusion / Advanced Techniques / June 2005

Can I encrypt ColdFusion files?

I'd like to make a CF application with encrypted .CFM pages so purchasers
can't see the code.  The purchaser would put the files on their server -- a
server which supports ColdFusion applications -- and the files would work just
like normal CFM pages.  However, the code could not be seen or copied.

An alternative is that some of the pages would sit on my server, and the
purchaser could "include" them at appropriate places with CFINCLUDE.  But the
purchaser would never be able to see the contents of the included file, only
the CFINCLUDE tag.  If they tried to see the contents of the included file, it
would only be gibberish or an error message.  But their ColdFusion
Administrator could still read the includes.

(I've never been able to use CFINCLUDE with a file on a different site or
server, unless two domains are hosted in the same directory, i.e.,
C:\sites\user27\site15.com and C:\sites\user27\site16.com, where I can use ../
to tunnel under the domain barrier.  If there's a way to include really
"distant" files, please tell me!)

Are either of these approaches -- encrypted files and/or included remote files
-- possible?

Thanks!