Password protecting your site with an .htaccess file

This article explains how to password protect your directory via SSH by creating an .htaccess and .htpasswd file. The following steps are covered in this article.

• Creating the .htpasswd file
• Creating the .htaccess file
• Code to protect a WordPress subdirectory
• Force SSL (HTTPS) on the login prompt

1. Log into your server via SSH.
2. Create an .htpasswd file in the directory you wish to password protect using the the htpasswd utility. For the first user, say user1, run the following:

   [server]$ htpasswd -c /home/username/example.com/.htpasswd user1

3. Enter the password for the user. This creates a password for a user named 'user1'. The code in your .htpasswd file will show the encrypted password like this:

   user1:$apr1$bkS4zPQl$SyGLA9oP75L5uM5GHpe9A2

4. Run it again (without the -c option) for any other users you wish to allow access to your directory.
5. Set the permissions on this file to 644.

   [server]$ chmod 644 .htpasswd

View the following page for further information:

• Apache Authentication HowTo

Next, create an .htaccess file using the nano editor:

[server]$ nano .htaccess

Code examples to add to the .htaccess file

Protect an entire directory

This example password protects an entire website directory. Make sure to change the lines in bold to your actual file path while changing to your username and domain name.

#Protect Directory
AuthName "Dialog prompt"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/username/example.com/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

Protect a single file

This example password protects a single file:

#Protect single file
<Files admin.php>
AuthName "Dialog prompt"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/username/example.com/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
</Files>

Protect multiple files

This example protects multiple files:

#Protect multiple files
<FilesMatch "^(admin|staff).php$">
AuthName "Dialog prompt"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/username/example.com/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
</FilesMatch>

Due to how WordPress routes all page requests, attempting to access a password protected subdirectory will throw a 404 Not Found error. To resolve this, you must an extra line to the .htaccess file to reference ErrorDocument.

This example protects a subdirectory named members.

ErrorDocument 401 default
    
#Protect Directory
AuthName "Dialog prompt"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/username/example.com/members/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

By default, the login prompt you see is not encrypted. This means your password will be sent as plain text over http. In order to encrypt this login, you must add an SSL certificate to your domain. Once added, add the code below to force SSL when logging in.

This method prevents submission of an .htaccess password prompt on an unencrypted connection. If you wish to ensure that your server is only serving documents over an encrypted SSL channel, then you must use the SSLRequireSSL directive with the +StrictRequire Option enabled:

Step 1 — Adding code to your .htaccess file

SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLRequireSSL
SSLRequire %{HTTP_HOST} eq "example.com"

ErrorDocument 403 /error_redirect.php

<Files /error_redirect.php>
  AuthType none
</Files>

If you're only protecting a subdirectory

If you only want to protect a single subdirectory and not the whole site, specify the subdirectory in your .htaccess file as shown in the following code:

#Protect Directory
AuthName "Dialog prompt"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/username/example.com/blog/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLRequireSSL
SSLRequire %{HTTP_HOST} eq "www.example.com"

ErrorDocument 403 /blog/error_redirect.php

<Files /error_redirect.php>
  AuthType none
</Files>

Step 2 — Add code to your error_redirect.php file

Now that your .htaccess will redirect to your error page, you must put some code into this error page to correctly redirect back to your secure login. Add the following PHP code.

<?php
  header("Location: https://" . $_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] . $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]);
?>

If you now try to log in, you''ll see both the URL and login prompt change to https://example.com.

Issue with renewing a 'Let's Encrypt' certificate

The code may cause a 'Let's Encrypt' certificate to not renew properly. If you have added a 'Let's Encrypt' certificate to your domain, make sure to disable the code in your .htaccess file when your certificate is about to renew. Once renewed, you can re-enable the code.