How to Disable Forums on Prod

If the forums service is significantly degrading LMS performance, it can be disabled by Django admin:

https://courses-internal.edx.org/admin/django_comment_common/forumsconfig/

Create a New Forums config, and do NOT check “Enabled”. Save the config. You can also set a more aggressive connection timeout for when to give up on forums even when it it enabled (the default is 5.0 seconds).

When the crisis has passed, re-enable forums by creating a new Forums Config with “Enabled” checked.