I am running a web server with Apache 2 on Redhat 9.0. I am trying to password protect a directory with .htaccess. I have done it before (on a different server) and I am pretty sure I have the .htaccess and httpd.conf files setup right. However, when I try to access that directory with a web browser, it gives me an Internal Server Error. If I change the AllowOverride statement from AuthConfig back to None, then the page comes up fine (with no username and password of course). I thought this was weird, so I checked my Apache Error log and there are many of these statements in it:

What the heck is wrong? I've searched the internet and have not found anything.

Louie

Hello Louie,

Ok..looks like I caught your problem..

Well, there are 2 files required when restricting access to a directory. One of them is the .htaccess file and the other is the password file which stores passwords for all users that are entitled to access the protected directories once they enter the password.

Now, in your .htaccess file, you seem to have written something like

AuthUserFile /var/www/html/mydomain.com/public_html/admin/.htaccess

If thats the case, then the above line is incorrect.

The correct line should be

AuthUserFile /var/www/html/mydomain.com/public_html/admin/mypasswd

This file 'mypasswd' ( you can choose your own name for the password file) needs to be created too. The command to create and store password of first user to the password file 'mypasswd' would be:

htpasswd -mc /var/www/html/mydomain.com/public_html/admin/mypasswd <username>

for second user onwards, the command would be

htpasswd -c /var/www/html/mydomain.com/public_html/admin/.htaccess <username>

Note that while the .htaccess file must be located into a directory for which you want to control/restrict access. But, the password file can be located anywhere. Of course, the AuthUserFile option in the .htaccess file will let apache know the location of the password file.

I hope this helps..

Regards,

amit

Well, my .htaccess file is pointing to the password file (/webusers). The log file is telling you which file it encountered the error in, not what file the AuthUserFile statement is pointing to. It looks like to me that the problem is deeper than a bad filepath. It is like Apache doesn't even recognize the AuthUserFile statement??

Louie