VWcms can provide a catch-all message configured on a per-system, global configuration or per-site configuration basis.

Defining a system logical name containing an explanatory message disables all VWcms instances on that system and provides the explanatory message to any request to VWcms.

$ DEFINE /SYSTEM VWCMS_DOWNTIME "VWcms will be available again next Monday."

If the global configuration file contains the directive

[downtime]  VWcms will be available again next Monday.

it similarly disables VWcms for all sites, while a site configuration file that contains the same directive disables that site only.

If the logical value or [downtime] begins with a dollar-delimited string then VWcms will treat that as a host name, host name wildcard or regular expression and perform a match against the client host (as represented by CGI variable REMOTE_HOST).  If it does not match then the downtime message is displayed and access denied.  If it matches then VWcms continues to process the request.  This allows the site to be accessed and perhaps worked from an administrator's host while denying general access.

For example

$ DEFINE /SYSTEM VWCMS_DOWNTIME "$192.168.1.*$VWcms will be available again next Monday."

would allow all hosts in the subnet access but deny any other, and

$ DEFINE /SYSTEM VWCMS_DOWNTIME -
"$^one.example.net|two.example.net$VWcms will be available again next Monday."

would allow hosts one and two access but deny any other.