Problem Trying to Get Password Protection to Work

did the .htaccess and .htpasswd already

[old_expat]

I read a couple of tutorials and have been trying to figure out where I went wrong.

I loaded the .htpasswd file above the public_html folder and the .htaccess file in the public_html folder

Tried 2 different encryption tools then tried ssh with Putty

Had the same result 3 times. My username and password won't let me into the site.

This is what's in my .htaccess file

AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /.htpasswd
AuthName "Welcome to my Web site"
require valid-user

also tried

AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /username/.htpasswd
AuthName "Welcome to my Web site"
require valid-user

Can it be a permissions issue? It loads as 644.

Also it is on a VPS

the username is "username" all lower case and the password (before encryption) is PA1234 (not really .. but you get the idea). Is the alphanumeric mix okay?

[Caterham]

AuthUserFile /.htpasswd

must be a file-path (full system path like /var/www/.htpasswd), not an URL-path.

[old_expat]

Thanks, got it working.:)