### Author:  [@chrisc](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chrisc)
#### Post date: [2019年四月3日 07:58 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/1 "2019-04-03T07:58:17Z")
I’m looking at the steps to take to create a development copy of a busy Discourse site that can be used for training and testing by administrators but which won’t send any emails to non-administrators.
Am I correct in understanding that if all non-administrators are [suspended](https://meta.discourse.org/t/description-of-various-user-states-in-discourse/35171) then this would have the result I’m after?
And if this would work can anyone point me in the right direction for how to do this using the rails console?
---
### Author:  [@slackmoehrle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/slackmoehrle)
#### Post date: [2019年四月3日 09:31 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/2 "2019-04-03T09:31:54Z")
You could do something like:
```sql
UPDATE users
SET silenced_till = '3019-02-01 13:00:00,'
SET suspended_till = '3019-02-01 13:00:00'
WHERE
RETURNING id, username_lower
```
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [2019年四月3日 13:21 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/3 "2019-04-03T13:21:30Z")
There is a site setting that will disable mail for non admins. Another thing that I do is to just configure the site with invalid email credentials.
---
### Author:  [@chrisc](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chrisc)
#### Post date: [2019年四月4日 11:03 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/4 "2019-04-04T11:03:03Z")
> [@slackmoehrle](#):
>
> You could do something like:
>
> ```plaintext
> UPDATE users
>
> ```
Thanks, I don’t have a huge amount of experience of using the rails console so I’m afraid I didn’t get past that first line:
```plaintext
[1] pry(main)> UPDATE users
NameError: undefined local variable or method `users' for main:Object
Did you mean? user_mask
from (pry):1:in ` __pry__'
```
Any suggestions?
For the criteria would it be something like this to only edit non-admins?
```plaintext
WHERE not(admin: true)
```
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> There is a site setting that will disable mail for non admins. Another thing that I do is to just configure the site with invalid email credentials.
Yes, I have used the option to disable all outgoing emails in the past but the plan for this site is to have a test version of a site that can send out and receive emails but only admins can use it.
---
### Author:  [@slackmoehrle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/slackmoehrle)
#### Post date: [2019年四月4日 11:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/5 "2019-04-04T11:24:25Z")
> [@chrisc](#):
>
> Thanks, I don’t have a huge amount of experience of using the rails console
That is a SQL statement, you need to use psql. If you are not familiar with SQL, please exercise caution as you can really hose your setup.
Your steps would be something like:
```sql
cd /var/discourse
./launcher enter app
sudo postgres
psql
\c discourse
now execute SQL
\q when done
```
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [2019年四月4日 11:46 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/6 "2019-04-04T11:46:35Z")
> [@chrisc](#):
>
> the plan for this site is to have a test version of a site that can send out and receive emails but only admins can use it.
Perhaps you missed that there is a new “staff only” setting for “disable emails”.
---
### Author:  [@chrisc](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chrisc)
#### Post date: [2019年四月4日 11:51 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/7 "2019-04-04T11:51:52Z")
Cheers, I know my way around MySQL…
> [@slackmoehrle](#):
>
> sudo postgres
FWIW that should be:
```bash
su - postgres
```
Or:
```bash
sudo -iu postgres
```
So I worked out how to select admin users:
```plaintext
discourse=# SELECT FROM users WHERE admin='t';
--
(6 rows)
```
And then tried:
```plaintext
discourse=# UPDATE users
discourse-# SET silenced_till = '3019-02-01 13:00:00,'
discourse-# SET suspended_till = '3019-02-01 13:00:00'
discourse-# WHERE admin='f'
discourse-# RETURNING id, username_lower;
ERROR: syntax error at or near "SET"
LINE 3: SET suspended_till = '3019-02-01 13:00:00'
^
```
However this works:
```plaintext
discourse=# UPDATE users
discourse-# SET silenced_till = '3019-02-01 13:00:00', suspended_till = '3019-02-01 13:00:00'
discourse-# WHERE admin='f'
discourse-# RETURNING id, username_lower;
```
Thanks for your help with this @slackmoehrle 🙂 .
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Perhaps you missed that there is a new “staff only” setting for “disable emails”.
Ahh! Yes, I had missed that, this is perfect, thanks.
---
### Author:  [@chrisc](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chrisc)
#### Post date: [2019年四月4日 13:48 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/8 "2019-04-04T13:48:58Z")
To sum up the above in case anyone else ever wants to do this, to disable all non-admin users:
```plaintext
./launcher enter app
su - postgres
psql
\c discourse
UPDATE users SET silenced_till='3019-02-01 13:00:00', suspended_till='3019-02-01 13:00:00' WHERE admin='f';
\q
exit
exit
```
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [2019年五月4日 13:49 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/suspend-all-users-apart-from-admin-users-for-development-copy/113317/9 "2019-05-04T13:49:05Z")
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