Encrypting AppSettings in file external to Web.Config

Question

I currently use this method to encrypt the AppSettings section of my application's web.config file: aspnet_regiis.exe -pe "appSettings" -site "MySite" -app "/"

But now I have moved some settings out to another file using the element

<appSettings file="IndividualAppSettings.config" >

I can still encrypt the app setting in the web.config, but is there any way to encrypt the content of the additional IndividualAppSettings.config file?

Answer 1

We do this all the time as we use external files for each of our environments.

First your appSettings element needs to look like this:

<appSettings configSource="IndividualAppSettings.config" />

Next, we call the encryption from the cmdline using:

aspnet_regiis -pe "appSettings" -prov "{0}" -site {1} -app "/"

where:

• {0} is the name of your encryption provider specified in the web.config.
• {1} is the Id of your site in IIS