Downtime

Downtime is a Vanilla extension that allows the administrator to take the forum offline for maintenance. Regular users will see a configurable message from the forum admins while privileged users will still be able to log in and use the forums normally, more or less.

Table of Contents

• Installing and Enabling Downtime
• Configuration Settings
• Quirks and Gotchas
• Development

Installing and Enabling Downtime

In order for Vanilla to recognize an extension, it must be contained within its own directory within the extensions directory. So, once you have downloaded and unzipped the Downtime files, you can then place the folder containing the default.php file into your installation of Vanilla. The path to Downtime's default.php file should look like this:

/path/to/vanilla/extensions/Downtime/default.php

Once this is complete, you can enable Downtime through the "Manage Extensions" form on the settings tab in Vanilla.

Configuration Settings

The easiest way to change Downtime's settings is to install and enable SetList. Once you enable SetList, forum administrators will see a link to Downtime in the side panel of the Vanilla settings page.

Downtime has two main settings to worry about. They are stored in Vanilla's conf/settings.php file.

$Configuration['FORUM_IS_OFFLINE']

If this setting is removed or set to "0", your forum will work normally. If it is set to "1", then only users with special permission will be able to log in or use the forum. Everyone else will be logged out and will see a message that the forum is offline for maintenance.

$Configuration['FORUM_OFFLINE_MESSAGE']

This string contains the message your users will see when the forum is offline. This setting is optional, but recommended if you don't want to badly confuse your users.

Anyone who has the "Change application settings" permission (that is, your admins) will still be able to use the forum normally when it is offline. You can also allow non-admin users to "test" the forum by giving them the "Can use the forum normally when it is offline" permission on the "Roles & Permissions" settings page.

Quirks and Gotchas

• When the forum is offline, only the sign-in form will be viewable by non-admin users. This might give you trouble if you aren't using the standard Vanilla sign-in form (for example, if you have a Vanilla/Wordpress combo). Downtime should still work properly, but you might not see the "forum offline" message automatically because it only appears as a warning on the standard Vanilla sign-in form.
• When the forum is offline, most functions of people.php will be disabled. That is, pretty much anything other than sign-in won't work; no applying for membership, no password reset, etc.

Development

Downtime was written by squirrel. Part of the Vanilla Friends project.