I have a general question about upgrading from one version of JBoss to another. When you've done all the slimming/thinning in your current installation and changed specific configuration files for your application (including debug levels, what services are enabled, and much more...), you'd like to be able to upgrade to another version while keeping these around.

What strategies do you use to minimize the effort needed to upgrade while keeping your settings? Do you use version control, or is there some feature of the actual installation process that I'm not aware of that simplifies this?

If using version control, which files/folders do you put there from the JBOSS_HOME directory?

I'd just like a workable solution to make this process hassle- and error-free (or -minimized, at least), and am interested to get your ideas. Thanks.