jdeathe/apache_maintenance_page.md

## apache_maintenance_page.md

      
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              apache_maintenance_page.md
            
          
    Apache - Maintenance Page


Activate/Deactivate with a file.
Bypass with a custom request header.

With the following Apache Rewrite rule, temporarily redirect all traffic to a maintenance page when a file named maintenance exists at the same level as the DocumentRoot directory. i.e. if your DocumentRoot is /var/www/public_html/ then creating the file /var/www/maintenance would trigger Maintenance mode.
Use something like the ModHeader Chrome browser extension to bypass the maintenance page by setting a X-Maintenance request header with a value of tF0BOCn4z8HgG2Kw (replace this with your own unique passcode string).
Instructions

1 - Create a Maintenance Page

Add a maintenance page to your DocumentRoot - the page should be a self contained HTML document such as the following example.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Maintenance</title>
        <style>
            body{color:#666;background-color:#f1f1f1;font-family:sans-serif;margin:12%;max-width:50%;}
            h1,h2{color:#333;font-size:4rem;font-weight:400;text-transform:uppercase;}
            h2{color:#333;font-size:2rem;}
            p{font-size:1.5rem;}
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>503</h1>
        <h2>Temporarily Offline</h2>
        <p>This site is currently closed for maintenance. Please check back again soon.</p>
    </body>
</html>

2 - Update your Apache configuration

Add the following rule to all required VirtualHost directives:
<LocationMatch "\.(css|gif|ico|jpe?g|js|png|svg)$">
    ErrorDocument 503 "Service unavailable."
</LocationMatch>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    <IfVersion < 2.4>
        ErrorDocument 503 /maintenance.html
    </IfVersion>
    <IfVersion >= 2.4>
        <If "! %{REQUEST_URI} =~ /\.(css|gif|ico|jpe?g|js|png|svg)$/i && -f '%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/../maintenance'">
            ErrorDocument 503 /maintenance.html
        </If>
    </IfVersion>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond "%{HTTP:X-Maintenance}" "!^tF0BOCn4z8HgG2Kw$"
    RewriteCond "%{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS}" !=503
    RewriteCond "%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/../maintenance" -f
    RewriteRule ".*" "-" [R=503,L]
</IfModule>

3 - Restart Apache

Apply the configuration changes with a graceful restart
# apachectl graceful