Sometimes you need to temporarily block visitors from your site while you update or fix something.
Changing NGINX settings or domain records can take time and is easy to undo incorrectly.
Maintenance Mode in RunCloud allows you to quickly turn access on and off without touching your server configuration. This lets you update or troubleshoot your site without visitors seeing unfinished changes.
To put your web application into Maintenance Mode, follow these steps:
- Open your RunCloud dashboard and select the web application.
- Click Settings in the left menu.
- Scroll to the bottom and open the Danger Zone section.
- Click Enable Maintenance Mode.
- Confirm when prompted.
After you enable Maintenance Mode, visitors see a simple default message:
RunCloud also shows a banner in the dashboard while Maintenance Mode is active.
Your application stays offline until you turn Maintenance Mode off using the Disable Maintenance Mode button.
Customizing the Maintenance Page
While the default RunCloud maintenance message is functional, you may wish to provide a more personalized experience for your visitors. Customizing this page allows you to apply your own branding, display an estimated time of completion, or provide alternative contact methods while your application is unavailable.
You can customize the appearance of the maintenance screen by directly editing the HTML template file located on your server. The location of this file depends on your server stack:
- NGINX:
/RunCloud/Packages/nginx-rc/html/maintenance.html - OpenLiteSpeed (OLS):
/RunCloud/Packages/lsws-rc/html/maintenance.html - Containerized:
/opt/RunCloud/Packages/nginx-rc/html/maintenance.html
You do not need to restart your server or any services after editing this file. Once you save your changes to the HTML file, they will take effect immediately.
Important: This template file is global. Any changes you make to this file will apply to all web applications on this specific server that are currently in maintenance mode.
FAQs
If I downgrade my plan, will Maintenance Mode automatically turn off for my applications?
No, Maintenance Mode will not be automatically disabled for any of your applications when you downgrade to a plan that no longer includes this feature. The applications that are already set to Maintenance Mode will remain in that state until you manually disable the setting for each application.
You must manually turn off Maintenance Mode for all affected applications before or after downgrading your plan to ensure they become publicly accessible again.
What happens to Maintenance Mode when I clone a website?
When you clone a web application that is currently in Maintenance Mode, the cloned application will be active by default, so you do not need to disable Maintenance Mode to make it accessible manually. This ensures that your new copy is ready for immediate use rather than inheriting the restricted access settings of the original site.
This behavior also applies when you create staging sites and restore backups. If you make a staging environment from a site in Maintenance Mode or restore a backup to a new web application, the resulting site will be live immediately. In both scenarios, the new application will start in an active state regardless of the Maintenance Mode status of the source application.
If you have any other questions or need help – please feel free to get in touch with our 24/7 support team. We’re here to help!