Config Transforms

In this article, you will find two options for applying environment specific configuration to your Umbraco Cloud project.

The article will show how to use a Web.Config transform as well as transforming the appSettings.json file.

What are Config Transforms?

Config Transforms are a way to transform your config files without changing the actual config file.

To transform a config file, you need to create a new file in your project with the following naming convention: {config-file name}.{environment}.config.

If you want to do a transform on your Web.config file for the Live environment of your project, the config transform you need to create will look like this:

Web.Production.config

The {environment} part needs to be replaced with the target environment, for which there are currently 3 possibilities for each project:

1. Production
2. Staging
3. Development

This file needs to be created on a local clone of your project, as this will ensure that the file is added to the project repository.

When the file is deployed to the Live environment the transforms will be applied to the Web.config file in the Root of your project. In the case that you also have a Development and/or Staging environment, the Web.Production.config will only transform the Web.config on the Live environment.

For each deploy, the Umbraco Cloud engine searches for all of the .{environment}.config files in your site and applies the transforms.

Syntax and testing

When creating config transforms you need to follow these three rules:

1. Use the correct file-naming convention
2. Place the transform file in the same folder as the file you want to transform
3. Follow the correct Config Transform syntax

Before applying the config transform files to your environments we recommend that you run a test using this tool: Webconfig Transformation Tester

Using the tool will let you test whether the transform file transforms your config files correctly. The tool can be used for all config files.

Examples

Rewrite rules are often something you only want to apply to your Live environment. To avoid the rewrites being applied to your Development and/or Staging environments, you can create a transform file to apply the rewrite rules to your Live environment only.

Here is an example of how that config transform would look:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
	<location>
		<system.webServer>
			<rewrite xdt:Transform="InsertIfMissing">
				<rules>
					<rule xdt:Locator="Match(name)" xdt:Transform="InsertIfMissing" name="Redirects umbraco.io to actual domain" stopProcessing="true">
						<match url=".*" />
						<conditions>
							<add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^(.*)?.euwest01.umbraco.io$" />
							<add input="{REQUEST_URI}" negate="true" pattern="^/umbraco" />
							<add input="{REQUEST_URI}" negate="true" pattern="^/DependencyHandler.axd" />
							<add input="{REQUEST_URI}" negate="true" pattern="^/App_Plugins" />
							<add input="{REQUEST_URI}" negate="true" pattern="localhost" />
						</conditions>
						<action type="Redirect" url="http://swato.dk/{R:0}" appendQueryString="true" redirectType="Permanent" />
					</rule>
				</rules>
			</rewrite>
		</system.webServer>
	</location>
</configuration>

This config transform will add a new <rule> to <system.webServer><rewrite><rules>. The xdt:Transform attribute is used to tell the system what to transform. In this case the value is InsertIfMissing, which means it will add the section if it's not already in the config file. In order to be able to identify the correct section the xdt:Locator attribute is used to match the value of the name attribute.

appsettings.json transforms

On Umbraco Cloud, projects come with an appsettings.json file for each of your different environments.

With this, you can add different environment-specific settings to your project.

To edit the appsettings.json files for the different environments, the Umbraco Cloud project needs to be cloned down to your local machine. Then the files can be edited using your code editor.

Once done editing the files, they will need to be pushed up to your Umbraco Cloud project in order to be added to the repository.

When the file is deployed to the next environment on Umbraco Cloud, the settings in the appsettings file will be applied to that environment. For example: the settings in the appsettings.Production.json will be applied to the Live environment of your project.