Password-protect access to an application with Apache

To configure Apache to request a username and password when accessing your application, follow these steps:

• At the console, type the following commands. Remember to replace APPNAME, USERNAME and PASSWORD with your application name, desired username and desired password respectively.

  $ cd installdir
  $ apache2/bin/htpasswd -cb apache2/APPNAME_users USERNAME PASSWORD
  

• Edit the installdir/apps/APPNAME/conf/httpd-app.conf file and add the following lines. In addition, find the line containing Require all granted line and comment it by placing a hash (#) symbol before it, as shown below:

  <Directory "installdir/apps/APPNAME/htdocs">
    ...
      AuthType Basic
      AuthName MyAuthName
      AuthUserFile "installdir/apache2/APPNAME_users"
      Require valid-user
    ...
  
    <IfVersion >= 2.3>
    # Require all granted
    </IfVersion>
    ...
  </Directory>
  

• If your application has a proxy, add the following lines at the end of installdir/apps/APPNAME/conf/httpd-app.conf file:

  <Location />
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "Authentication required"
    Require valid-user
  </Location>
  

• Restart the Apache server:

  $ sudo installdir/ctlscript.sh restart apache
  

When accessing the application, you will see the following authentication popup window. Enter the username and password that you have defined in the first step:

To change the password later, run the htpasswd utility without the -c switch and replace the USERNAME placeholder with the username of the account you wish to modify:

$ sudo installdir/apache2/bin/htpasswd installdir/apache2/APPNAME_users USERNAME

To add another user to the same file, run the htpasswd utility without the -c switch and replace the USERNAME and PASSWORD placeholders with the new username and password you wish to add.

$ sudo installdir/apache/bin/htpasswd -b installdir/apache/APPNAME_users USERNAME PASSWORD