Step 1

Create a file name: .htaccess in any text editor such as Windows Notepad. (That is dot htaccess with no extension)

Include the following information in this file, changing the AuthUserFile pathname to reflect the directory that you wish to secure:

Arachnet Member Home Page Version Example:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Secure Area"
AuthUserFile /home/username/htdocs/secure_directory/.htpasswd
require valid-user

Arachnet Hosted Domain Version Example:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Secure Area"
AuthUserFile /home/domain.com.au/htdocs/secure_directory/.htpasswd
require valid-user

Note: In the above examples secure_directory would be the name of the folder that you wanted to make secure.

Step 2

Create a file name: .htpasswd in any text editor such as Windows Notepad. (That is dot htpasswd with no extension)

Step 3

To create your encrypted password file click on the following link and copy the resulting information into your .htpasswd file.:

http://www.arach.net.au/cgi-bin/htaccess_generation.cgi

For example if I want to have the password set to "password":

Result of crypt password

A crypted version of password is: EjdESLi5YXgXQ
Example of a line in a password file for web authentication (colon separated):

username:EjdESLi5YXgXQ

So if I wanted the following:

username: myname
password: password

The line in the .htpasswd file would be: myname:EjdESLi5YXgXQ

Examples For You to Use

To view examples of these files, please click below:

• .htaccess [Arachnet Member Home Page example]
• .htaccess [Arachnet Hosted Domain example]
• .htpasswd

Note: If you are going to use these files they must have their filename saved as .htaccess or .htpasswd and adjust as required. A zipped file with the correct file names is supplied here.

Upload The Files

Then simply upload your .htaccess and .htpasswd files using FTP into the directory that you want to password protect - once uploaded, test the access out in your Internet browser.

Additional Customising

The incorrect password attempt error page can be customised by yourself by adding into the .htaccess file, the following line:

ErrorDocument 401 /error401.html

Where /error401.html is the path to the customised error page that you have created and provided on your website.

Tip: Do not actually put this file inside your password protected directory or the user will be kept in a never ending loop.

SSH & Telnet Access

Due to security and technical reasons we do not allow access via SSH or Telnet to the Arachnet server.