Why is .elasticbeanstalk folder included in .gitignore?

Question

After I configured eb cli for my project, it seems to have automatically added it's configuration, saved in .elasticbeanstalk folder, to .gitignore file of my project. However, when I checked out the config.yaml (the only file in this folder) it didn't seem to contain any passwords or authentication information, just general configuration.

What's the rationale behind including it in the .gitignore? Wouldn't I want to track this information as well?

Answer 1

config.yaml is a pretty lightweight file but there are a couple of options unique to the local environment and developer which you would not want getting changed in a group development setting.

They are:

• default_ec2_keyname
• profile

default_ec2_keyname

This lets eb know what security key pair to use when deploying code. In a well structured security environment every developer would have their own set of credentials (uniquely named) and if this value was tracked and changes as a result it would cause problems

profile

This option is used as a shortcut to make using many sets of keys (even for one developer locally) easier to apply. For example: say I have 10 clients I do work for, each client has their own AWS account and delivers me my security key pairs. Locally I assign them each to a profile with a nickname so it easier to apply them to multiple repos, and so when I make a change to the profile credentials, that change is applied to all projects using that profile. (So if I have 10 repos for client_1 profile and client_1 cycles my deploy credentials, I only have to update them in one place, not in all 10 repos.)