In the background, this command will create a file called ".maintenance.flag" in the "var" folder. You can create this manually as well, however, recommended and the best is to do this using the terminal command.

A confirmation message is returned to let you know that it was enabled:

At this point if you'll access the website you'll see the following output:

Allowing certain IP Addresses

You can still allow certain IP Addresses to access your website while it is in maintenance mode by running the initial enable command and appending at the end the "--ip=..." argument.

Example to allow only one IP:

Example to allow multiple IP Addresses:

The output of the command will confirm that the changes were applied:

The IP Addresses will be saved in a temporary file called ".maintenance.ip" from "var". If the file doesn't exist, it will be created automatically, so you don't have to worry about anything.

Usually, the maintenance mode will be enabled for all the customers and visitors but excluded for the shop owner and developers by adding their IP Addresses in the enable command as explained above.

Disable maintenance mode

To disable the maintenance mode, you will need to run the next command:

This command will remove var/.maintenance.flag file that was created when the maintenance mode was enabled, and a confirmation message will be returned:

Maintenance mode status

To find out if the maintenance mode is enabled or disabled, or to see the list of whitelisted IP Addresses in case you don't remember, this is the command that you need to run in the terminal:

This will show you the current status of the maintenance mode:

The standard maintenance page in Magento 2 is quite simple. Soon I will post an article about how to customize the maintenance page.

In case you have questions about maintenance mode do not hesitate to leave a comment.