To protect a directory with .htaccess in Fedora
A folder or directory of the public documents can be protected to prevent unauthorized visitors from seeing its contents using "HTTP authentication"
Create a file named .htaccess in the directory you want to protect and put following into file:
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Secure Area"
AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/conf/htpasswdfile
Require valid-user
Save the file and exit.
Now create the htpasswd file at given location.
cd /etc/httpd/conf
htpasswd -c htpasswdfile admin
Here one user 'admin' and password file 'htpasswdfile' is being created with the command 'htpasswd'
It will prompt for password (2 times), supply the password.
## (Some how apache, the web server user is not able to read the password file if you place the file in /root and /home/ folder so keep the file in the location where the httpd.conf file is)
## Make sure AllowOverride is set to All in the httpd.conf file