This morning Google pushed a bad configuration file used by search, and for 55 minutes all search results came back with a “this site may harm your computer” warning.
Oops.
A timely reminder that configuration needs testing, too.
The question that you need answered before you push is “will the application configured in this new way behave the way I expect it to?” The details of how you’ll test to answer that question will depend on the nature of your application and its configuration data, but will probably include some tests against possible misconfigurations. In Google’s case, where the configuration error was essentially an accidental wildcard in a blacklist, a simple “verify that there isn’t a wildcard here” test would have saved them some embarrassment.
Are there simple tests that could save you from embarrassment?