Best way to force SSL

Hello,

I've forced SSL on my server using the following directives:

<VirtualHost _default_:80>
  DocumentRoot "[Full path to install dir]"
  ServerName [url without protocol]    # added this line
  Redirect permanent / https://[url]/  # added this line
  ...

in the file at [install directory]/apache2/conf/bitnami/bitnami.conf

My questions: is this considered the best way to force SSL?
Will I need to add these changes to version control or is this file safe in DF updates?

Thanks!
Josiah