Using Git for Server Configs Permalink

Git, Shell, Apache Added less than a year ago and last edited less than a year ago

I dev on a VM that has at least two projects running with incompatible apache httpd.conf files. The differences include User/Group, Location etc, so I switch between the configs and then restart apache httpd when I want to work on a particular project.

Firstly, I understand that some or all of my different settings could be merged into one conf file and made to work on different virtual hosts etc, but in some situations you can't do this because: you only want one project running off your dev server at a time due to performance/load issues; or you have a specific file you need to use as a httpd conf file from your codebase etc.

So - I used git to help me switch between configs. 

# cd /etc/apache2
# git add apache2.conf
# git commit
# git tag projA
# vim apache2.conf # or cp your apache2.conf for projB into place
# git add apache2.conf
# git commit
# git tag projB
# echo "/etc/init.d/apache2 restart" > .git/hooks/post-checkout
# chmod a+x .git/hooks/post-checkout

... now you are setup! So when you want to switch to projA you do this: 

# cd /etc/apache2 && git checkout projA

... and to switch back to projB use: 

# cd /etc/apache2 && git checkout projB

... and your apache will automatically restart after each checkout.

Yes you could do this just by copying your files into place but I think this is a neat use of git and one that will scale over many projects and many revisions of the conf files.

UPDATE

Instead of using tags, use branches! That way you can update the conf files, commit, and then continue using the projA and projB identifiers.

Colophon

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The author is a software engineer living in Australia. He sux at guitar, loves camping, doesn't like cake, does like coffee and is a lazy home brewer.

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