How are people handling the maintenance of the individual web.config
files when dealing with multiple SharePoint front-end servers (FES)?
Microsoft recommends that you should not update your IIS server's web.config
file directly. They recommend that you use a secondary config file where changes to the web.config file are maintained; a sort of a "delta" file. There are several reasons for this, outlined here.
However, the Microsoft articles (and others that I have seen) do no discuss the issues of maintaining multiple FES systems in a single SharePoint farm, which by definition means multiple web.config
files. Should the approach be:
- Update one FES system's
web.config
"delta" file directly, get this file replicated across all the other FES systems and then run the "apply updates" across all FES systems. - Update one FES system's
web.config
"delta" file directly, run the "apply updates" on that server and then run a process on all other systems to apply updates based on differences between the localweb.config
and the "master"web.config
for the farm. - Update all FES
web.config
"delta" files at once and run the "apply updates" all at once. - Something else.
BTW: In our SharePoint farm all FES systems are offering the same services, so changes to one FES system would apply to all FES servers.
For the "apply updates" process I am considering using this codeplex offering. Does anyone use this, or have any experience with alternatives?