Temporary Maintenance using Mod_Rewrite

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# Don't forget to turn on the rewrite engine
RewriteEngine on

# Maintenance Redirection
# Replace 555\.555\.555\.555 with your own IP address
# Uncomment first conditional to turn off the redirection
# RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^$a
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !maintenance.html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !(styles|images).+$
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^555\.555\.555\.555$
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^127\.0\.0\.1$
RewriteRule (.*) /maintenance.html [R,L]

This code makes it easy to temporarily take down a website for updates. Replace the “555” line with your own IP address so that you’ll still be able to view the website as normal while everyone else gets redirected. Images and styles are allowed to pass through the filter as well.

The first commented condition is designed to fail every time, so turning this redirection off is as simple as uncommenting that line.