Topic: Apache run different httpd configuration - best practice?

[ShaIT]

Hello all,
What do you think is the best practice to maintain a lot of servers dedicated Apache installation of the following option:

- use original httpd.conf file and change it with extra configuration files?
- create a new renamed httpd.conf file with application name and maintain only this one?

Translating my questions could be also:
In an Enterprise environment is a good choice customize all Apache basic configuration like i.e. the execution of httpd with a different httpd.conf file?
Could be hard maintain all these customized configuration?

Thanks

[James Blond]

For me the best solution was / is to remove all things from the config that I don't need. Even out commented modules. Up to a certain point I have the files identical. But for special tasks the files need to be different. Also not all servers have the same vhosts. For me a good practise is to keep each domain in a separate file. I think the best decision so far was to have the files in version control ( svn, git, ... you name it). That way I'm able to maintain the files in my favorite editor on my desktop computer and jsut do a quick update on the real server then. That often saved a lot of time when something went wrong and I was able to restore the last working version. I put also ssl keys and certs into the repo. If a server dies it is easy to replace it on new hardware.