How to password protect a website folder

create a .htaccess file inside the directory you want protected. You can use either the vi or pico editors on the supported systems mentioned above or ftp the file to this directory. If you are new to unix or know little about vi then I suggest you use the pico editor or ftp the .htaccess file. The command to edit with pico is "pico .htaccess". The .htaccess file should contain the following lines. The items in bold are things you will want to change depending on the location of the AuthUserFile and content of AuthName.

AuthUserFile /z/ric/secret/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Ric's protected files"
AuthType Basic


require valid-user

The AuthName is what the user will see when they're prompted for a password - something to the effect of "Enter the username for Ric's Protected files". The AuthUserFile is location of the password file and should be not accessible with a url on the server for security reasons.

First cd to the directory that contains the password file. In this example the password file is called .htpasswd and is in the directory /z/ric/secret/ as indicated by the AuthUserFile file entry in the .htaccess file. For every username you want to add to the password file, enter the following. (the -c is only required the first time; it indicates that you want to create the .htpasswd file).

cd
   mkdir secret
   cd secret
   htpasswd -c .htpasswd pumpkin
     [ you're prompted for the password for pumpkin]
     [ if you have other users enter the following. Don't use the -c]
   htpasswd .htpasswd user2
   htpasswd .htpasswd user3

[cited from: http://www.colostate.edu/~ric/htpass.html]