Can't get htpasswd to work

[ryy705]

Hello,

I created the .htpasswd and the .htaccess file on a live server. But it did not do anything.

I placed the same files on my laptop, changed the absolute path in the .htaccess file and it is working on my laptop.

Does htpasswd have to be enabled somehow in some server setting? Do permissions make a difference?

What should I do to diagnose such problem?

thanks in advance for your help.

[adamwonski]

yes, it must be permitted in server config, and .htaccess must be readable by apache daemon's user.

If you have read access to the apache config, check:
* AllowOverride - if it's set to None, you can't use .htaccess, if to something else - check apache manual for this directive
* AccessFileName .htaccess - It's also possible that the admin chose a different filename to use

If you can't read the config, place an incorrect directive in your htaccess, like:
NonExistingDirective BlaBla
if you get "Internal Server Error" after reloading the page, .htaccess works