# Locking Out User Access

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/locking-out-user-access/111145>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 3, 2007, 2:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/locking-out-user-access/111145 "2007-08-03T02:49:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dukael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/c77e96/32.png) [@dukael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dukael)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 2:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/locking-out-user-access/111145/1 "2007-08-03T02:49:39Z")

</div>

Hi all,

I’m new to rails and this is my first post to this list so apologies  
if I’m little slow on a few things.

I have a standard database app with multiple users and a limited  
access admin controller. Occasionally, I need to run some very  
processor-intensive queries on the database that slow the app to a  
crawl. During this time, I would like to lock out users from accessing  
the app. Specifically, I want to redirect users accessing any  
controller other than the admin controller to a page that says “check  
back later”.

Currently, I just edit my .htaccess file when I do this. However, I  
want to be be able to run an action from my admin controller that does  
this for me.

I tried setting a global variable (with a dollar sign) in my admin  
controller but none of the other controllers seem to be able to see  
it. I can’t store the variable in the database either, since the busy  
database is the reason I wanted to lock users out in the first place.  
I’m also considering just having the action run a shell script but I’m  
not really sure how to do this.

If anyone has any ideas, I’d be much obliged.

– Andrew

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dukael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/c77e96/32.png) [@dukael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dukael)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/locking-out-user-access/111145/2 "2007-08-03T03:12:41Z")

</div>

On Aug 2, 2007, at 8:48 PM, Andrew F. wrote:

> this for me.  
> it sounds like you want a filter at the top of the application  
> controller that checks whether a “redirect all non-admin users” flag  
> is set and, if so, checks whether the request is coming from a logged  
> in user who has the admin bit. the filter should redirect to the  
> temporary page, and shouldn’t run for the login controller (which  
> you’ll need to go to manually, but will let you log in so admin users  
> can bypass the filter.

you might look at how acts\_as\_authenticated handles login filters to  
provide some guidance on doing one yourself.

-faisal

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dukael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/c77e96/32.png) [@dukael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dukael)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 9:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/locking-out-user-access/111145/3 "2007-08-03T09:05:14Z")

</div>

Andrew F. wrote:

> controller other than the admin controller to a page that says "check  
> I’m also considering just having the action run a shell script but I’m  
> not really sure how to do this.
> 
> If anyone has any ideas, I’d be much obliged.

Capistrano has (or had?) a way to disable your web access altogether by  
creating a maintenance.html file. With Apache configured correctly all  
requests are being served this file when it exists. When the file is  
removed the application becomas accessible once more. You should be able  
to do something similar.

–  
Cheers,

- Jacob A.