Simplifying Configuration Management with Spring Cloud Config Server: A Comprehensive Guide

In today’s distributed systems, managing configurations for multiple applications and environments can be a challenging task. Thankfully, Spring Cloud provides a solution with its Config Server module. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to set up and leverage the power of Spring Cloud Config Server to simplify configuration management.

What is Spring Cloud Config Server?

Spring Cloud Config Server is a component of the Spring Cloud framework that offers centralized configuration management for distributed systems. It provides a scalable and flexible solution for externalizing and managing configurations for multiple applications and environments. The Config Server acts as a central repository for storing configuration files and enables client applications to dynamically retrieve their configuration from it.

Setting up the Spring Cloud Config Server

Adding dependencies

Include the spring-cloud-config-server dependency in your build configuration, typically in your pom.xml file for Maven or build.gradle file for Gradle:

<!-- Maven -->
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-cloud-config-server</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

// Gradle
dependencies {
    implementation 'org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-config-server'
}

Creating a Spring Boot application

Create a Spring Boot application with the @EnableConfigServer annotation on the main class:

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.cloud.config.server.EnableConfigServer;

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableConfigServer
public class ConfigServerApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(ConfigServerApplication.class, args);
    }
}

Configuring the server

In the application.properties or application.yml file of your Config Server application, specify the location where the configuration files are stored:

# application.properties
spring.cloud.config.server.git.uri=file:///path/to/config-repo

Storing Configuration Files

Create configuration files for your applications and environments and store them in the configured location. Each application’s configuration should be stored in a separate file, typically named after the application.

For example, if you have an application called “my-app,” create a file named my-app.properties or my-app.yml in the configured repository path with the desired configuration properties:

# my-app.properties
app.name=My Application
app.version=1.0.0

# my-app.yml
app:
  name: My Application
  version: 1.0.0

Thank you for reading, please like and follow. Please comment if you want me to write how we can access the properties from config server.