Lock or Unlock site collections in SharePoint 2010

In this article we will be seeing how to lock or unlock site collections in SharePoint 2010.

Introduction:

To prevent users from adding the contents or updating the contents to the site collection you can apply locks to a site collection. And also to prevent users from accessing the site collection temporarily you can apply locks to a site collection.

Site Lock Information:

To view the current lock status or to change the lock status go to Central Administration => Application Management => Site Collection => Configure quotas and locks.

You could see the lock status as shown in the following

Locking Options:

The following are the locking options available in SharePoint Server 2010.

Not locked
Adding content prevented
Read-only (prevents additions, updates, and deletions)
No access

Not locked - Unlocks the site collection and makes it available to users.

Adding content prevented -Prevents users from adding new content to the site collection. Updates and deletions are still allowed.

Example:

When you try to add content to the site collection you will be getting the error.

I tried adding word document to the Shared Documents I was getting the following error.

Read-only (prevents additions, updates, and deletions) - Prevents users from adding, updating, or deleting content.

Example:

You won't be getting an option to add, update or delete the contents. I tried deleting the document from Shared documents but the options were disabled in the ribbon interface and I was not able to find the options in the ECB menu.

No access -Prevents users from accessing content. Users who attempt to access the site receive an access-denied message.

Example:

When you try to access the site collection you will be getting the following error.

Lock or Unlock site collection using object model:

Open Visual Studio 2010.
Go to File => New => Project.
Select Console Application template from the installed templates.
Enter the Name and click Ok.
Add the following assembly.

Microsoft.SharePoint.dll
Add the following namespace.

Using Microsoft.SharePoint;

Adding content prevented:

SPSite.WriteLocked property is used to enable "Adding content prevented" option.

It is used to get or set a Boolean value that specifies whether the site collection is locked and unavailable for Write access.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://serverName:22222/sites/test"))
{
site.WriteLocked = true;
site.LockIssue = "Testing Purpose";
}

Note: Refer SPSite.WriteLocked for more details.

No access:

SPSite.ReadLocked property is used to enable "No access" option.

It is used to get or set a Boolean value that specifies whether the site collection is locked and unavailable for Read access.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://serverName:22222/sites/test"))
{
site.ReadLocked = true;
site.LockIssue = "Testing Purpose";
}

Note: Refer SPSite.ReadLocked for more details.

Read-only (prevents additions, updates, and deletions):

SPSite.ReadOnly property is used to enable "Read-only (prevents additions, updates, and deletions)" option.

It is used to get or set a Boolean value that specifies whether the site collection is read-only, locked, and unavailable for write access.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://serverName:22222/sites/test"))
{
site.ReadOnly = true;
site.LockIssue = "Testing Purpose";
}

Note: Refer SPSite.ReadOnly for more details.

Lock or Unlock site collection using powershell:

Go to Start => All Programs => Microsoft SharePoint 2010 products => SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
Run as an administrator.
Run the following script.

Set-SPSite -Identity "<SiteCollectionURL>" -LockState "<Lock>"
Where:
<SiteCollectionURL> is the URL of the site collection that you want to lock or unlock.
<Lock> is one of the following values
- Unlock
- NoAdditions
- ReadOnly
- NoAccess