Password protect a virtual directory? - .htpasswd/.htaccess

Question

Is it possible to password protect a virtual directory (such as a wordpress category):

/c/sofas/

It looks like <Location /c/sofas/> would work in httpd_config, but not .htaccess

Is it possible? Possibly with a mod_rewrite somewhere?

Answer 1

Unfortunately <Location> directive isn't allowed in .htaccess.

But there is an alternate neat solution using mod_setenvif.

# set env variable SECURED if current URI is /c/sofas/
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI "^/c/sofas/" SECURED

# invoke basic auth is SECURED is set
AuthType Basic
AuthName "My Protected Area"
AuthUserFile /full/path/to/passwords
Require valid-user
Satisfy    any
Order      allow,deny
Allow from  all
Deny from env=SECURED