Setup a Maintenance Page in IIS

This chapter describes how to create a redirect page in IIS. The HTML file can be designed in any way using HTML + CSS. The following steps indicate the necessary activities to set up this page.

Step 1: Creation of a new directory for a better overview of the forwarding page

It is recommended that a subdirectory be created in the wwwroot directory of the IIS (e.g. Redirect). The HTML file of the new maintenance page is then stored in this directory.

To do this, create a new virtual directory with appropriate names within the Default web page in the IIS. Right-click on the Default website and you can create a virtual directory.

Creation of a virtual directory in IIS

Creation of a virtual directory in IIS

Step 2: Creation of HTML website with maintenance page content

Within the folder specified above, right-click to create a text document with the extension .html. The file can be named for example Redirection.html. Within this file can be edited using Editor (e.g. Notepad++) to create the HTML page with CSS content. A small example of a maintenance page can be found below. However, this can be customized according to the wishes.

 

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"&gt

<html>

<head>

<title>WebOffice maintenance page</title>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

</head>

 

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">

<div style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:95%;height:300;background-image:url('signet_weboffice.png);background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right;z-index:11;"></div>

<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

 

<font face="Calibri, Verdana, Arial">

<p>Dear Partner, Dear Client</p>

<p>The server is currently undergoing maintenance!</p>

 

</body>

</html>

 

After that the created file will be saved.

 

Step 3: Test of the accessibility of the maintenance page via the IIS

This step tests the general availability of the maintenance page on the IIS. If the following URL can be accessed, the requirements for redirection to the maintenance page are met.

 

http(s)://<server>/<directory>/Redirection.html

 

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For more information on how to install the necessary modules to set up a redirect page, please refer to chapter Installing IIS extensions (IIS ARR, URL Rewrite).

For more information about the configuration of the IIS ARR module, refer to chapter Configuration or Setup of IIS ARR.

For more information on configuring redirection rules, refer to the chapter Configuration of Forwarding Rules with URL Rewrite.

For more information on how to enable or disable the rules in IIS, please refer to chapter Activation or Deactivation of the Forwarding Rule in IIS.