Laravel 5 maintenance mode turn on without artisan

If your project is already down, you cannot call another function.

What happens after you run php artisan down is that it creates a file named down inside storage/framework. After running php artisan up the file is removed.

You can create the file manually inside storage/framework. It will down your project. When you want to take your project live again, just remove the file.

I think the right answer is missing here.. You could add your route to app/http/middleware/CheckForMaintenanceMode.php

protected $except = [
        //here
];

So It never would be off.