htaccess.txt

Here is how a user (say USER) can protect a given WWW directory 
(let's call it www.math.ualberta.ca/~USER/DIR), so that only
people who know both the username (say student) and password can read
the contents of www.math.ualberta.ca/~USER/DIR:

1. Put the following lines in the file ~/public_html/DIR/.htaccess
where USER represents your userid

AuthUserFile /home/USER/.htpasswd
AuthName "authentication"
AuthType Basic
<Limit GET>
order deny,allow
require valid-user
</Limit>

2. If you have not previously created a ~/.htpasswd file, set up a password for
username student with the following command:

htpasswd -c -m ~/.htpasswd student

If you already have a .htpasswd file and you want to add to it, type:

htpasswd -m ~/.htpasswd student

3. If you want to prompt the user with the username so that he only needs
to remember the password, simply change the word "authentication" in the file
~/public_html/DIR/.htaccess to the actual username (in this case, student).
The username will then be displayed like this (one still needs to type it in),

Enter username for student at www.math.ualberta.ca: