htaccess gives 500 - Internal Server Error

Question

I am protecting a html file with htaccess and htpasswd. When I try accessing it, after putting both user and password, instead of loading the "index.html" file I get a "500 - Internal Server Error"

AuthName "Restricted Area" 
AuthType Basic 
AuthUserFile home/folder/index.html/.htpasswd 
AuthGroupFile /dev/null 
require valid-user

Any suggestions? Maybe something with the hosting service?

Solution

First of all, consult the error-log (usually located in /var/log/apache2/error.log) to see the exact cause of the error.

If you do not have access to it, check the following:

• is this technique supported by the server? (ask your provider or admin)
• is AuthUserFile correct? It seems to be missing a slash and the directory is unusual. I would have suspected something like AuthUserFile /home/webuser/sitefolder/.htpasswd.
• change the group-file to AuthGroupFile None instead of pointing apache to read /dev/null. Think of /dev/null as a bottom-less trashcan. It's not easy to get anything from there and might be a reason for the server to fail trying.
• change the case of your require to Require valid-user. It needs to be a capital R.

To sum up:

AuthName "Restricted Area" 
AuthType Basic 
AuthUserFile /home/webuser/sitefolder/.htpasswd 
AuthGroupFile None
Require valid-user

For further info, I recommend http://httpd.apache.org/docs/.

Comments

[no0ne]

Thank you kronn, My hosting provider (1and1) told me that there is no error-log, that I need to create it and upload it (where?) my self. I just wanted to make a website, and now I end up being forced to learn some server issues.. frustrating to say the least.. Is there any simple way to learn (or do) this?

[kronn]

That sounds horrible, from your point of view. I would start by tweaking the .htaccess-file. Try to find the smallest version. the AuthGroupFile is not needed, for example. You can also try to experiment on your local machine. For every major OS, there is an easy to use installer for Apache, PHP and so on. One example would be XAMPP, however I am quite sure that there are many more. I dug a little trough the FAQ of 1and1.com and can understand your frustation. They should be able to tell you where an error.log is recognized automatically. HTH

[Sean2015]

In this vast bottomless abyss of the internet, after spending way too much time than I think was justified, (although less than you), I found the fix to the 500 internal error. All it took was to open the htaccess file in textwrangler, instead of textedit (in which I created it) and change those damn quotes. I mean, who would have thought... curly quotes???? Thank god for dudes like you... Thanks again. :)