Knowledgebase

Redirect your visitor to maintenance page is a must when you are upgrading your site. Now you can redirect your user to maintenance page easily by using .htaccess file.

So just follow the steps below to create a .htaccess file to redirect your visitor to maintenance page during upgrade:-

1. Create a file and name it .htaccess with the content below:-
   
   

   Options +FollowSymlinks
   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$ 
   RewriteRule $ /maintenance.html [R=302,L]
   

2. Once the file is created, put it at your root directory. (This will be in http://www.yourdomain.com/.htaccess)
3. Create another file name it maintenance.html (just put what messeage you want to show to your visitor during the upgrade) and put it at the root directory too. (This will be in http://www.yourdomain.com/maintenance.html)
4. Now you can try to browse your site and it should now redirect you to maintenance.html
5. Since you are going to perform the upgrade, you have to able to browse the site. So you have to exclude your IP in the .htaccess file. Now you have to add a line in the .htaccess file as below:-
   
   

   RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^888\.888\.888\.888
   

   
   ** Please change the fake ip (888.888.888.888) to your own IP, you can find out what your IP is by visiting our Support Centre
6. Now your .htaccess file should look like below.
   
   

   Options +FollowSymlinks
   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$
   RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^888\.888\.888\.888
   RewriteRule $ /maintenance.html [R=302,L]
   

Your visitor should be redirected to maintenance page by the .htaccess we set just now and you should be able to browse your site and perform your upgrade.