Enabling and Disabling a Website Running on Apache or NGINX

There may be times when you have to temporarily disable a website. For example, you might have to satisfy a legal requirement or make an emergency content change. Fortunately, you do not have to completely delete or radically reconfigure a website to disable it. This guide provides instructions on how to quickly disable and re-enable a website, based on the webserver and Linux distribution.

The instructions for disabling and re-enabling a website depend on the webserver that is installed on your Linode. See the section that corresponds to either NGINX or Apache. Throughout these instructions, replace the placeholder site name of example.com with your own domain name.

Note

Taking a site offline, even temporarily, can affect its Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ratings. If you only want to briefly disable a site for maintenance reasons, consider using a temporary redirect instead.

By default, NGINX installed on Ubuntu and Debian systems use the sites-available and sites-enabled directories to control website access. This approach is often used even on other Linux systems. If the Linode is already using these two directories, follow the instructions in the Use the Sites-Enabled Directory subsection. Otherwise, skip to the Use the Virtual Host File on the NGINX Web Server subsection.

Ubuntu systems have a /etc/nginx/sites-available directory, which contains virtual host (vhost) files for each domain hosted on the Linode. For instance, the domain for example.com typically has a corresponding virtual host file named /etc/nginx/sites-available/www.example.com.conf. The filename might not include the .conf extension in all cases.

To enable a website, you must create a symbolic link inside the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled directory pointing to the actual vhost file in /etc/nginx/sites-available. The nginx.conf file reviews the contents of the sites-enabled directory and determines which virtual host files to include. These domains are made available to potential viewers. Adding a symbolic link leading to a virtual host file enables the associated site while removing the symbolic link disables it.

File: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

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... include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*; ...

1. To find the name of the domain, list all of the sites hosted on the Linode using the following command:

    ls /etc/nginx/sites-available
   

2. To disable a site, remove the symbolic link from the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled directory.

    sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/example.com.conf
   

3. Reload NGINX to apply the change.

    sudo systemctl reload nginx
   

4. Use a browser to confirm the site no longer resolves. You should see an error page when you access the site.

5. To enable the site again, re-create the symbolic link to the virtual host file.

    sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/example.com.conf
   

6. Reload NGINX to apply the change.

    sudo systemctl reload nginx
   

7. Enter the name of the newly-enabled domain in a browser. The webpage should be displayed.

Some Linux systems do not use the sites-available and sites-enabled directories. In this case, you can disable a site by renaming the virtual host file. In a typical NGINX installation, the web server is specifically searching for host files ending with .conf. So you can “hide” a virtual host by changing its extension.

1. Locate the virtual host file you created for the domain using the sudo nginx -T | grep example.com command. Change to its parent directory.

    cd etc/nginx/conf.d/
   

2. Change the extension of the .conf file to something else, such as .disable.

    sudo mv -i /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.com.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.com.disable
   

3. Reload NGINX to apply the change.

    sudo systemctl reload nginx
   

4. Enter the domain name in the browser. The site should no longer resolve.

5. To re-enable the site, rename the virtual host file back to its original name.

    sudo mv -i /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.com.disable /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.com.conf
   

6. Reload NGINX and confirm the site is accessible again.

Note

There could be cases where a website does not have a separate virtual host file. This might occur if it is the only site on the Linode, or if the system is using a non-standard configuration. In this case, comment out all the lines in the website’s vhost entry, using the # symbol. See the Use the Virtual Host File on the Apache Web Server section of this guide for more information.

On Ubuntu and other distributions of Linux, Apache makes it very easy to enable or disable a site. It includes utilities that handle all the necessary configuration changes.

The a2dissite and a2ensite tools greatly simplify the process of disabling and enabling a website. The following commands are geared towards Ubuntu but are similar to other versions of Linux.

1. Disable the site using the a2dissite command followed by the site name. Enter the name used for the virtual host .conf file, without the extension.

    a2dissite example.com
   

2. Reload the Apache configuration to apply the changes.

    sudo systemctl reload apache2
   

   Note

   On some versions of Linux, the apache2 module is known as httpd. On these platforms, the equivalent command is sudo systemctl reload httpd.

3. Use a web browser to verify the domain is no longer accessible.

4. To re-enable the site again, use the a2ensite command followed by the site name.

    a2ensite example.com
   

5. Reload the Apache configuration to apply the change.

    sudo systemctl reload apache2
   

6. Navigate to the domain and ensure the site is available again.

If the a2dissite and a2ensite tools are not installed, edit the virtual host file and comment out the domain configuration.

1. Locate the virtual host file for the domain. If necessary, use the command httpd -S to display the path to this file. Change to the parent directory of the file, for example, /etc/httpd.

    cd /etc/httpd/vhost.d
   

2. Comment out all lines in the virtual host file using the # symbol. The virtual host information typically begins with a line such as <VirtualHost *:80> followed by a list of the server attributes including ServerName and ServerAlias.

   File: /etc/httpd/vhost.d/example.com.conf

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   # <VirtualHost *:80> # ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com # ServerName example.com # ServerAlias www.example.com ... # </VirtualHost>

3. Reload Apache to apply the changes using systemctl restart. On CentOS, the Apache service is referred to as httpd.

    sudo systemctl restart httpd.service
   

4. Try to access the domain using a web browser. The site should no longer resolve.

5. To re-enable the site, uncomment the contents of the .conf file. Remove the # symbols preceding each of the lines in the file.

   File: /etc/httpd/vhost.d/example.com.conf

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   <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com ServerName example.com ServerAlias www.example.com ... </VirtualHost>

6. Restart Apache using systemctl.

    sudo systemctl restart httpd.service
   

7. Use a web browser to ensure the site is now available.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• NGINX
• Apache Web Server