Allow access to subdirectory only

[imanewbe]

I have a .htaccess file with the following in it

AuthName "Username and password required" 
AuthType Basic 
AuthUserFile /home/john/www/.htpasswd 
AuthGroupFile /dev/null 
require valid-user

What I want to do is only allow access to a subdirectory rather than the directory that the htaccess file is in once they user has logged in.

Is this possible? If so how would I go about doing this?

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld, imanewbe!

What I want to do is only allow access to a subdirectory rather than the directory that the htaccess file is in once they user has logged in.

move that .htaccess file to the subdirectory.

[lucy24]

That was my immediate response too, but then I thought there must be protected material in the outer directory. I think really we need more information. Among other things, can the directory structure be rearranged? Putting accessible content inside of inaccessible content doesn't seem the safest.

Granted, every website in the world does the same thing to some extent. Nobody can run wild in the / (physical top level) directory. But here we're on a deeper level.