I’m moving a WordPress installation from one server to another. The IP
address will change, but the URL will not, since I will redirect DNS.
The problem: while DNS changes propogate, people might end up at
either installation.
That’s fine for reading, but if they leave comments/register/etc on
the old server, their comments/registration/etc will be lost.
Is there any way I can make WordPress “read only” on the old site?
I realize WordPress uses its database (MySQL in my case) for internal
purposes, and I can’t simply disallow database writes.
In other words, I want to disallow user-initiated database
writes/changes, but nothing that will stop WordPress for working
properly in read-only mode.
Ideally, each page on the old server would say something like:
“You are viewing this WordPress blog on an old server. Until you
receive a DNS update with a new IP address for wordpress.foo.com, you
can read articles, but cannot comment on articles, register as a new
user, etc”.
Turn off commenting in your old blog using the following Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disable-comments/
Then turn off the new user registration from Settings->General by unchecking “Anyone can register”
Hope it will help 🙂