what would be the best way to close your website if needed?

[duuudie]

Hi

Anyone familiar with bboard softs know that you can close your board when you don't want people to have access to your site for some reasons.

I was wondering what would be the best way to handle it?

There is one obvious and easy solution: include a file at the top of each with a request to a table. If the value for the 'open' col is false --> redirect to a page displaying the 'close' message.

Somwhow, hiting the db at the top of each page doesn't seem the best solution to me. Is there a better way? For example, is there a way to let the server know that in a 'closed website' situation he has to redirect users to a specific page? How tell the server (Apache in my case) that the situation is a 'closed website' one?

thanks in advance for your time and your help

[frezno]

If i recall correctly there's a possibility to individualize your 403/404 page.
It might be possible to set up an htaccess to deactivate everything and output just your own 403 or 404 page.
That might be a possibility to think about.

Sorry that i can just be that vague but i'm no expert in htaccess and it's just an idea...

[plugged]

If you want to close it, put in .htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .+ /closed.php

[duuudie]

If you want to close it, put in .htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .+ /closed.php

that way, all browsers requesting smthg to the server would be redirected to closed.php right?

[dklynn]

duuudie,

plugged didn't mention that his .htaccess addition should be in the directory that you want your requests redirected. That means, if you put it at the (virtual) site's root level, ALL site pages will get redirected.

I've assumed (as has plugged?) that your bboard pages will be in their own directory and you'll only want those page requests redirected.

Regards,

DK

[Ray Oliver]

I would define a constant to indicate that the site is disabled, include the following at the top of every file in the site:

if (SITE_DISABLED) {
    include('/path/to/disabled.php');
    exit();
} 

You could even get fancier and tie it into a user group/permission system (if you have one) that would let YOU access the site, but deny everyone else.

[Viflux]

Along those same lines, I use an access control on each page.

The pages that are accessable contain a

define( 'ALLOWED' , true ); 

and then each page that is not directly accessable contains a

if( !defined( 'ALLOWED' ) || ( ALLOWED != true ) ) {
  header( 'Location:http://www.hyfen8.com/errorPage?id=101');
  die();
} 

This allows me to redirect the user to the page I want, and can include different messages based on the ID passed.

A simple search+replace for the define statement throughout the site will allow me to "disable" the site by switching it to false. The error page allows me to offer an explanation.

[duuudie]

thanks for your replies

Could you tell me more about how I would define constants, where and based on what?

thanks in advance

[JustForWebmasters]

I think this would work...at the top of each file:

<?php

require_once('status.php');

?>

Then the status file. If you want to disable your site...

echo('This site is closed. We apologize for the inconvenience.');
die(); 

Otherwise, just have that file blank.

[Edit: Corbb can't spell]

[dklynn]

I had a terrible time searching for this last night but "pippo" over in the Apache forum has provided an .htaccess AUTO_PREPEND so that all your PHP files do not have to be modified to include a file! That thread is here.

pippo's info was:

# private/prepend.php will be parsed before any .php file content
php_value auto_prepend private/prepend.php

[Edit: There is more info about "auto_prepend_file" as a php.ini entry so the above may need to be modified.]

Unfortunately, I can't find anything on the apache.org site, the php.net site and only a few postings here at sitepoint about auto_prepend except that its designated file is parsed BEFORE anything on the requested page as if it was included at the start of the file.

Regards,

DK

[duuudie]

thank you very much for your help guys

it's really REALLY appreciated.

(and sorry for the late follow up: $alex->holydays(); )