Site Maintenance Plugin

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Mike Witt

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Mar 18, 2021, 10:46:14 AM3/18/21
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Does anyone have a plug-in they would recommend for site maintenance. I need one that will restrict access by IP address. In other words, once I go into maintenance mode users should not be able to log in via the Wordpress login page.

Mike Little

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Mar 18, 2021, 1:45:55 PM3/18/21
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On Thu, 18 Mar 2021 at 14:46, Mike Witt <msg...@gmail.com> wrote:
Does anyone have a plug-in they would recommend for site maintenance. I need one that will restrict access by IP address. In other words, once I go into maintenance mode users should not be able to log in via the Wordpress login page.

Hi Mike, 

You are asking for a couple of different things there. 

Maintenance mode normally stops the site being viewed by anonymous visitors, often displaying a holding page with a simple message. Though you can have fancy holding pages with countdown timers and email signup forms too. But the site can normally be seen by a logged in user (e.g. the client can see work in progress). 

I use WP Maintenance Mode as my go-to basic one https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-maintenance-mode/ for this.

Stopping valid users being able to log in is a separate thing again. Not normally related to maintenance mode. But, as it happens, WP Maintenance Mode does support restricting which roles can access the site, whether front end or back. So if you don't allow any roles (administers will still be able to access both) then even if they login correctly on the login page, they still can't get to the back end (nor see the front end if you configure it that way)

But this is still stopping anyone, including anonymous users being able to see the normal site. It will be in 'maintenance mode'. I'm not sure whether you want the normal site to be seen. 

Some of the security plugins may allow you to restrict access to the login page by IP address. But I think most of them restrict who can login or who doesn't have limits and rules applied, rather than access to the login page itself. 

One other alternative to temporarily lock out valid users but still allow access to the front end of the site, is to set users' roles to 'no role for this site'. It will allow them to log in but they can't access the back end. Not even to edit their profiles.

If this isn't enough, can you explain more what you want to happen?


Mike


 
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Mike Witt

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Mar 18, 2021, 1:54:49 PM3/18/21
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Sorry if that wasn't clear. I should have mentioned that it's a
Membership site. If Wordpress Admins can still log in, that's OK.
Anybody else should see the special "Down for maintenance" page. I
sounds like the plugin you mention should be able to handle that.

On 03/18/2021 11:45:08 AM, 'Mike Little' via Manchester WordPress User
> But this is still stopping anyone, including anonymous users *being
> able to
> see the normal site*. It will be in 'maintenance mode'. I'm not sure
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/manchester-wordpress-user-group/434c717c-c8cb-456e-b3d2-fb18110d530bn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> > .
> >
>
>
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> Stay safe and healthy, best regards,
>
> Mike
>
>
>
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> *Mike Little*
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Mike Little

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Mar 18, 2021, 2:01:13 PM3/18/21
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On Thu, 18 Mar 2021 at 17:54, Mike Witt <msg...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry if that wasn't clear. I should have mentioned that it's a 
Membership site. If Wordpress Admins can still log in, that's OK. 
Anybody else should see the special "Down for maintenance" page. I 
sounds like the plugin you mention should be able to handle that.


Yes it sounds like it will do the job. Just make sure to not have any roles in the boxes for who can see admin screens and who can see front end.
The plugin does allow u to set up a fancy maintenance page too. So you can brand it accordingly, put a nice message on there etc. 

A tip: If you need any motivation to get the maintenance work completed by a certain day or time, add a countdown to the page. Now you've got to get everything sorted before that countdown reaches zero 😃

Mike


 
Stay safe and healthy, best regards,

Mike



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Mike Little
WordPress Specialist

Twitter: @mikelittlezed1

Founder and Director
Zed1.com Limited
https://zed1.com

Mike Witt

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Mar 18, 2021, 2:04:41 PM3/18/21
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Actually it would be handier if it could restrict by IP. Aside from
being less complicated, that would also allow for testing with
"regular" users while in maintenance.

On 03/18/2021 12:00:25 PM, 'Mike Little' via Manchester WordPress User
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/manchester-wordpress-user-group/1616090087.4132.10%40Vector
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>

Mike Little

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Mar 18, 2021, 2:41:00 PM3/18/21
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On Thu, 18 Mar 2021 at 18:04, Mike Witt <msg...@gmail.com> wrote:
Actually it would be handier if it could restrict by IP. Aside from 
being less complicated, that would also allow for testing with 
"regular" users while in maintenance.


I don't know of any plugin that will restrict access to logging in by IP. That's something that you normally do at the server level (e.g. Apache .htaccess).

There is another maintenance mode plugin by SeedProd (https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/coming-soon/) that allows you to give out temporary urls that will give access to the site while it stays in maintenance mode for everyone else. But I don't know how that will play with a membership site.

Another option to look into, in terms of testing is the User Switching plugin (https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/user-switching/) which is great for switching rols and checking how the site behaves for different users. But again, I'm not sure how that would play with a membership site where you want most people to be locked out. 

It really sounds to me like you need to set up a completely separate staging site to do your maintenance and testing on first. That way you can restrict all access to a certain IP address (again at the apache/server level) and use the User Switching plugin to do some of your tests.



 
Stay safe and healthy, best regards,

Mike



-- 
Mike Little
WordPress Specialist

Twitter: @mikelittlezed1

Founder and Director
Zed1.com Limited
https://zed1.com

Mike Witt

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Mar 18, 2021, 2:52:09 PM3/18/21
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On 03/18/2021 12:40:16 PM, 'Mike Little' via Manchester WordPress User
Group wrote:
> I don't know of any plugin that will restrict access to logging in by
> IP.
> That's something that you normally do at the server level (e.g. Apache
> .htaccess).

You know, that is probably a good idea. I think it would be better done
with .htaccess rules. Thanks for that.

> It really sounds to me like you need to set up a completely separate
> staging site to do your maintenance and testing on first. That way
> you can
> restrict all access to a certain IP address (again at the
> apache/server
> level) and use the User Switching plugin to do some of your tests.

Yeah, I do have a stating site. But I still take the real site down for
updates and test (some) things again. I have never been able to
simulate *everything* on the stating site.

Again, thanks for mentioning .htaccess, I think that really is the way
to go.
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