htaccess/htpasswd ERROR?

[Knestis]

I'm setting up password protection on the Admin poriton of my osCommerce store, and put this in .htaccess in that directory:

 

AuthUserFile /home/content/... /html/.htpasswd <- full pathname of .htpasswd, edited here

AuthGroupFile /dev/null

AuthName P4DL Catalog Admin

AuthType Basic

require valid-user

 

I then put .htpasswd where it would be expected, per the pathname above...

 

kknestis:password <- not my actual password, of course

 

When I tried to get into Admin in my browser (Firefox), I got the user/password demand window but when I entered my information, the window just popped up empty again. I tried a couple times, thinking i'd messed up the PW, and then got an Apache "Internal Server Error" message.

 

I ftp'd both files back off of the server and let my hosting co. know that I'd dorked them up.

 

Any ideas where I went wrong? I'm not a complete putz but this isn't my primary job, so be gentle. I took my host's word on the pathname to .htpasswd - if that were wrong, would it likely result in the error that I saw (or created)?

 

I also didn't encrypt the password in any way, not being clear if it is necessary - or just useful - for it to be encoded. This is my first guess as to where I screwed up.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas...

 

Kirk

[OceanRanch]

I also didn't encrypt the password in any way, not being clear if it is necessary - or just useful - for it to be encoded. This is my first guess as to where I screwed up.

 

Your first guess is correct, the password needs to be MD5 encoded. Straighten that out first. There are lots of tools that will do this for you. Search here for htpasswd and/or if you have apache installed use it's command line version of htpasswd to create the htpasswd file.

 

HTH

Tom

[dad7732]

In your /home/content/... /html/

 

% htpasswd -m username password

 

The password you choose will be MD5 encrypted. A .htpasswd file will be created with the correct info, as such:

 

username:Id8mqT <-- encrypted password example

 

Your .htaccess should then be:

 

AuthUserFile /home/content/.../html/ .htpasswd

AuthGroupFile /dev/null

AuthName ByPassword

AuthType Basic

 

require user username

 

 

where "username" is your username

[conno]

In your /home/content/... /html/

 

% htpasswd -m username password

 

The password you choose will be MD5 encrypted. A .htpasswd file will be created with the correct info, as such:

 

username:Id8mqT  <-- encrypted password example

 

Your .htaccess should then be:

 

AuthUserFile /home/content/.../html/ .htpasswd

AuthGroupFile /dev/null

AuthName ByPassword

AuthType Basic

 

require user username

where "username" is your username

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I was wondering about this also. Thanks dad7732