Here's what worked: I put all of the Auth directives in a Directory tag <Directory /svn> #how to authenticate a user AuthType Basic AuthName "Restricted Files" AuthUserFile /etc/site-passwd #Only authenticated users may have access Require valid-user brownec </Directory> I could only get the site to authenticate when I had my name listed in the valid-user line. Otherwise, I get "unknown require directive" messages in my error log. I was under the impression that apache looked in the location block before the directory block. Thanks. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project. See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info. To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx " from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx