Password protecting directories with Nginx

The following explains how to password-protect directories for a website that's running on an Nginx server.

How this configuration differs from an Apache server

On an Apache server, it's possible to password-protect a directory using .htaccess and .htpasswd files. However, .htaccess files are not supported on Nginx. You can still password protect your directories, but you need to use a basic_auth.conf file instead.

The following steps explain how to create a configuration file and confirm it's working in a browser.

1. Log in to your server via SSH.
2. Navigate to your user's directory.
3. View the Nginx configuration file locations article to create your local /nginx/example.com directory.
4. In this /home/username/nginx/example.com directory, create a file named basic_auth.conf with the following:

   location / {
     auth_basic "Restricted";
     auth_basic_user_file /home/username/nginx/example.com/.htpasswd;
   }
   

   • username would be your Shell user and example.com your website.
   • The auth_basic parameter is just the title of the prompt the user sees when visiting this directory.
   • The auth_basic_user_file parameter specifies where the password file is. Note how its path is set to the /nginx directory.
   • In this example, the location directive password protects the entire domain since it's pointing to /.
   • If you want a subdirectory to be password-protected, change the location directive as follows:

   location /subdirectory/
   

5. Run the following to create the .htpasswd file. LOGIN is the username you want to use to authenticate in the login prompt. Change this to anything you like.

   [server]$ htpasswd -c /home/username/nginx/example.com/.htpasswd LOGIN
   

6. After typing that command, enter a password and confirm it when prompted:

   New password: 
   Re-type new password: 
   Adding password for user LOGIN
   

7. Reload the nginx config file.
8. In your browser, load the directory your /home/username/nginx/example.com/basic_auth.conf points to. In the example above, this would be your domain's root directory since the location directive points to /.
9. Enter a user/password when prompted to log in. In this example, your username is LOGIN and the password is the one you created above.