Question

I am running apache 2.2 on a linux machine and my goal is to have all directories except for a subdirectory with authentification. I can get the “all” directories to work, but when I add the except for the subdirectory, I get an internal error:

configuration error:  couldn't check user.  No user file?: /download/public/

This is my configuration file:

<Directory /var/www/mydir/software/download/public>
     AuthType None
     Require all granted
</Directory>


<Directory /var/www/mydir/software>
      AuthType Basic
      AuthName download
      AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/auth/software
      Require valid-user
 </Directory>

when I comment out the first four lines, everything works fine. With these lines, I get the aforementioned error.

$ apache2 -v
Server version: Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu)

Question: what do I need to change to get the subdirectory without authentification with apache 2.2. I believe that the configuration above is for 2.4. Is that what I want possible with 2.2?

Answer 1

Looks like this was already answered: see this previous stackoverflow question.
You might try the “ugly workaround” listed in the answers to that previous question.