Maintenance page

For work on the server or the database (for example a manual update or restoring a backup), you take invoiceR offline briefly. So that users see a notice instead of an error message, use the ASP.NET Core maintenance page.

How it works

If a file named app_offline.htm is in the program folder of a website, IIS shuts down the application and answers all requests with the content of this file. As soon as you remove or rename the file, the application starts again with the next request.

Starting and ending maintenance

1. Copy the maintenance page as app_offline.htm into the program folder of the backend (and of the frontend if needed).
2. Carry out the maintenance work.
3. Delete or rename the file, for example to _app_offline.htm.
4. Open invoiceR in the browser and check that the login page appears.

Tip

enio supplies a ready-made maintenance page (app_offline.htm with the text “Website Down For Maintainance” and a button to try again). You can adapt the text, for example with the expected duration of the maintenance. Do not refer to images or scripts of the application itself, because they are not delivered during maintenance.

Note

For automatic updates through the updater you do not need the maintenance page. The updater stops and starts the website itself.

For more, see the Microsoft documentation on the “App Offline file (app_offline.htm)” for ASP.NET Core.