apache - .htaccess/.htpasswd 500 Internal Server Error

Question

I'm working on blocking a folder with .htaccess, which I've never used before, and I'm having some trouble. Here's what I have

.htaccess (located in the folder I want blocked):

AuthName "Username and password required"
AuthUserFile /.htpasswd 
Require valid-user
AuthType Basic

.htpasswd (located at root, password is encrypted in actual file):

   tim:blah

I'm getting 500 Internal Server errors with this and I can't figure out why.

Answer 1

Most likely problem is this line:

AuthUserFile /.htpasswd 

This line should provide full filesystem path to the password file e.g.

AuthUserFile /var/www/.htpasswd 

To discover your filesystem path, you can create a PHP document containing

echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];