Creating an .htaccess file on your DreamHost web server
View the following article for instructions on how to create an .htaccess file on your web server:
If the file already exists, view the following articles for instructions on how to update it (depending on if you're using an FTP client or SSH):
Pointing your site to the maintenance page
If your site is going into maintenance, you can forward visitors to a maintenance message automatically. First, you must create a file named maintenance.html in your web directory.
View the following articles for instructions on how to create a file:
Then, add the following to your .htaccess file. You only need to change the URL in bold to whatever page you'd like to display.
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$
RewriteRule .* /maintenance.html [L]
If you now visit the site, it automatically loads the contents of the maintenance.html file, but the URL does not change.
You can replace [L] with [R=307,L] if you prefer that the user see the URL change to example.com/maintenance.html. However, this is usually not what you want.