When I am doing maintenance work for my ASP .NET web application, I will always take down the web application temporarily. This is because the application domain will always restart when I deploy a new version of the application. Hence, in order to prevent online users to make request when the website is still under deployment, there is a need to take the website down and then show the online users a friendly message that my website is currently unavailable.
Two Steps to Take Website Down
Luckily, there is a very convenient way of doing that in ASP .NET 2.0 or later.
Firstly, a file with the name “App_offline.htm” needs to be created. This is the only web page that will be shown to the online visitors when the website is down. Thus, we will put our friendly messages to notify the visitors that the website is currently under maintenance in the web page.
Secondly, we will put this file in the root of the website virtual directory.
Finally, visit the website now. You will realize that no matter which web page you visit in the website, you will always be redirected to App_offline.htm, the page telling you that the website is under maintenance.
Things to Take Note of
Current Request Still Be Processed
According to an interesting experiment shared on Stack Overflow, only new request will be redirected to the App_Offline.htm. Existing requests when the App_Offline.htm is uploaded will still be processed.
Minimum of 512 Bytes
It turns out that Internet Explorer will show its own generic status code message if the App_Offline.htm contains less than 512 bytes.
Permission of App_offline.htm
Yes, check the permission of the file under Properties -> Security because if the App_offline.html doesn’t have correct permissions given, it will not work as expected as well.
Conclusion
As demonstrated above, it is indeed very easy to take an ASP .NET website down. What a convenient App_offline.htm!
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