Is it possible to take a Drupal site offline using Drush?
+6
A:
Yep. drush vset site_offline 1 will set it offline, then drush vdel site_offline will bring it back.
Alternatively, you can check out my Maintenance File module on drupal.org, which will set your site to offline if it finds a specific file in the directory.
theunraveler
2010-10-28 18:20:21
A:
theunraveler's solution is the best if you're running a single site. We were running a very large multisite drupal installation, with hundreds of sites. Taking them offline that way via drush takes several seconds per site which was unacceptable. The fastest way to take a site offline is to break the db connection by for example renaming the settings.php file. Then just assign a default theme that has a basic template that doesn't require the db, saying "Site Offline" or something. After upgrading you can just repair the settings.php file and you're good to go.
Nader
2010-10-28 18:29:29
That takes just as long. To set a default theme for each site, you have to make a database change. The drush command above is also making a change in the database: it is the same as UPDATE {variables} SET value = 1 WHERE name = 'site_offline'. So, the issue is not with drush or even this method of setting sites offline, which is obviously the most ideal.
theunraveler
2010-10-28 19:49:09
@theunraveler: I think the point is that you only need to make a single change once you have done the setup. Not a method I would use myself though.
googletorp
2010-10-28 20:23:35
@theunraveler: that's not the case. in a multisite setup you can set a default theme in the base installation so that if you can't reach one of the "multisite" sites it defaults to that base theme. trust me i spent a lot of time investigating this including making the db change directly. that's not sufficient because the cache doesn't get flushed. as i mentioned above, i don't recommend this unless you have a lot of sites and performance is important. but with this technique you can take 500 sites offline in a couple seconds, versus 5-7 seconds per site via drush
Nader
2010-10-28 20:32:49
nice, my first down vote... :)
Nader
2010-10-28 20:35:38
Ah! I didn't know Drupal would fall back to a default theme if it couldn't find the actual theme. Although I still think that the Maintenance File module would be a better option. Good to know, though! +1
theunraveler
2010-10-28 21:03:56