Not being an experienced developer (I would say I’m on the basic level, actually), trying the nginx solution to present a maintenance page was a bit of a nightmare. Today, I had this idea and decided to ask Claude if this would be possible, now that I use Railway for other websites and applications: …

[image] alltiagocom: it would take sometimes 20 minutes. It takes seconds if you move to the two container install. You can even schedule the switch over at night if you really want to, whilst you and/or your main audience sleep. You don’t need a maintenance page.

i use the dual container build behind Cloudlfare CDN. the dual container minimizes downtime and my two main production forums both have 30 seconds max offline during rebuilds. i like having a maintenance page because the default web server is down page is ugly and gives no clue to how long it will …

Wow! I really appreciate that detailed walkthrough! :raising_hands: I just saved your reply in my notes so when I install Discourse again soon, I will come back to it. I will definitely let you know how it went, even if it takes a while until I install it. I’m finishing some coding stuff at the mom…

[image] alltiagocom: taking the time and there’s the rub. It’s not a simple change and additional infrastructure to worry about and maintain, and imho entirely not worth it for a few seconds of downtime. Also I believe that people with the Discourse site open will not be redirected to the m…

I understand what you mean, but that’s just one case. What if something really breaks and I need to fix it, taking longer than just a few seconds? Also, how are you getting a few seconds of downtime and I was seeing like 20 minutes, after installing plugins?

[image] alltiagocom: Also, how are you getting a few seconds of downtime Because in the two container setup (linked in both of our posts and a non-negotiable dependency) you bootstrap the new build using ./launcher bootstrap web_only (during which your site is still 100% functional), then you…

Oh ok, that’s still for the 2 container setup. I thought that you were saying it was not worth the work building the 2 container setup completely. What you are saying is not worth it, is just that maintenance page extra work, right?

Personally yes. If you want belts and braces for web viewers that appear with fresh navigation during the 30-60 seconds, then a maintenance page is fair. You have to weigh the benefit of that against the time to maintain the infrastructure around it.

Now I understand. Thanks. So now I ask: with 2 containers, those 20 minutes or so, are still a thing, the only difference is that I can let it do it on one of the containers, the one that’s not live, and when it’s ready, do the switch. Is that how it works?

Maintenance page workaround - can this be done?

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Canapin (Coin-coin le Canapin) August 1, 2026, 12:46pm 17

For reference as it was asked on another topic, the (edit: wrong) answer: Any cheaper alternatives to Hetzner? - #2 by Canapin

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Maintenance page workaround - can this be done?

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