It is such a pleasure working with Sitecore Rule-based configuration. Once it was introduced, at first I thought it will resolve the long time problem with ShowConfig.aspx not available on Content Delivery (CD) instances. This limitation is obviously due to security reasons… You do not want to expose Sitecore’s configuration on live sites.

Rule-based configuration introduced a new feature on showconfig page and that is simulation of how config would look like if you where using different role (e.g. ContentDelivery). https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/developers/latest/platform-administration-and-architecture/view-configuration-changes.html#simulate-changes-to-server-roles-and-layers

This is really helpful but it is really not solving the problem completely as you still cannot see the runtime configuration on CD instances if some of config files are deployed via different channel.

There are lots of scripts and tools how to hack it and get it but I was not a big fan of them.

But the solution is really easy and built into Sitecore for many years or releases now…

Solution

Solution is to generate Support Package based on this documentation.

Just navigate to below URL based on your Sitecore version:

  • For Sitecore XP 8.2 Initial Release — 8.2 Update-6, Sitecore XP 9.0 Initial Release and 9.0 Update-1:
    • <site hostname>/sitecore/admin/supportpackage.aspx
  • For Sitecore XP 8.2 Update-7, Sitecore XP 9.0 Update-2 and later:
    • <site hostname>/sitecore/admin/supportpackage

Click Next and on next screen choose D-03 and Click Collect:

PRO Tip: Select all possible checkbox and look into the package once you download it! You will be amazed what this tool can gather for you from your Sitecore instances without going physically to them 😉

On next step, choose instances you would like to gather information about and click Start:

On next step, once gathered, click Done and then Download:

Once downloaded, unzip downloaded file and navigate to Config and Runtime subfolders where you will find ShowConfig.xml file 🙂

As a bonus, you can find all config files under Config folder:

Enjoy!