redirect and loop, please help

The value of HTTP::uri will never by empty. It will at least always contain the beginning "/" character. So your conditions of the URI equalling "" will never pass.

Another option would be the following (if you want all requests to go the maintenance page).

when HTTP_REQUEST {
  if { ([string tolower [HTTP::host]] equals "www.pepito.com") and
       ([string tolower [HTTP::uri]] ne "/maintenance/index.html") } {
    HTTP::redirect "http://www.pepito.com/maintenance/index.html"
  }
}

This will redirect all requests to the www.pepito.com domain to the maintenance page except for ones already going to the maintenance page (thus avoiding the infinite loop).

I threw in some "string tolowers" so that it would match mixed case requests as well.

Citizens example will redirect either "http://www.pepito.com" or "http://www.pepito.com/" while mine will redirect all requests. Pick your choice...

-Joe

}