htacces & sub-directories

Question

How could I give different access to sub-directories?

The first problem is: I must let the programmers modify the htaccess files, but not the access control.

I have access only to htaccess directives for once, not to the httpd.conf of Apache. And here are my folders:

~/www/ ~/beta/ -> group betatesters developers ~/dev/ -> group developers 

I would like to have only one .htaccess located in the root directory (developers don't have access there).

~/.htaccess ~/htpassd ~/htgroup 

.

AuthType Basic AuthName "Password Required" AuthUserFile /home123/user321/htpasswd AuthGroupFile /home123/user321/htgroup <FilesMatch "beta"> Require group betatesters developers </FilesMatch> <FilesMatch "dev"> Require group developers </FilesMatch> 

Any idea?

Answer 1

You can set in the Apache conf what parameters are fair game to be changed in a .htaccess file. http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/core.html#allowoverride

In your specific example, you don't want the AuthConfig settings to be overidable. You can do that either by not listing AuthConfig with the AllowOveride directive. eg.

<Directory foo> AllowOveride Indexes <...> </Directory> 

Or explicitly declaring that AuthConfig is not modifiable.

<Directory foo> AllowOveride -AuthConfig <other options here> </Directory> 

Answer 2

after you stated you DON'T have access to httpd.conf, Joshua Hoblitt answer only applies partially.

if it is possible for you to use another directory structure like

~/www ~/www/beta ~/www/dev 

you could adapt Joshua's solution.