I've got a Drupal development site where I test everything (modules, configurations etc.) before implementing on the production site. As it is right now, I need to write everything I do on paper and carry out the same steps on the production site.
How do you keep production sites in synch with development sites? Is there any handy modules out there for this purpose? To what extent can Drush help me out on this?
There are a number of approaches to synchronizing configuration between environments.
A few popular ones for Drupal 7 are:
For example with drush and features you can revert a component to the code definition with
drush fr my_feature
For more info on drush and features https://drupal.org/node/960926
In Drupal 8, exporting configuration has become much easier:
With Drupal 8 you can deploy a configuration from one environment to another. This capability replaces the need for various contributed modules such as Features, Strongarm and Context. https://drupal.org/documentation/administer/config
David's answer is good. In addition, you might also want to take a look at Drush CTools Export Bonus. It uses the same underlying technology as features, but is designed with configuration management in mind rather than collections of features. It supports block configuration.
Also, if you want to script simple block configuration operations (e.g. turning on devel blocks on a development machine), drush_extras now supplies some simple block manipulation commands.
