.htaccess and .htpassword not working

Question

I'm running a wamp server on a windows xp box.

I have a .htaccess file that contains

AuthType Basic AuthName "restricted area" AuthUserFile C:/wamp/www/.htpasswd require valid-user 

and a password file .htpasswd

user:$apr1$4EPQ5/..$aRu05NnKW3Zhpf2m1Jst2. 

password = password

The .htaccess file sits in a subdir called "NewCats" (the folder im trying to protect) and the password file sits in the root dir (i tried it in the newcats folder and it didn't work there either.

the document root is

C:/wamp/www/

so what am i doing wrong? (also i used this site to create the hashes http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator/)

Answer 1

One possibility is the following :

On Windows the paths use a backslash (\) and not a slash (/).

Try editing your .htaccess to match this.

AuthUserFile C:\wamp\www\.htpasswd 

You also have to be sure that auth_basic_module is activated in Apache and that your .htaccess doesn't end with the txt extension !

Answer 2

Make sure AllowOverride None isn't set. It ignores .htaccess files that way. Make it read AllowOverride AuthConfig.