A little mod_rewrite help needed [resolved]

[Markbnj]

I have a Wordpress install, and for various reasons related to the host I'm using, I have the install at the web server root. For awhile now I have also had a subdirectory under the root where I keep files I want to link to. These links were always published as absolute url's to a specific file, and they worked fine.

Now I want to password protect a specific folder under that subdirectory, and I want to provide a directory listing.

I downloaded a directory listing script, and dropped it into topmost folder that I want to be private. The script is in index.php in that directory. I then added the following .htaccess in that directory:

AuthName "Private Files"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile "/home/myuser/.htpasswd"
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
require valid-user

Then in ~ I placed the following .htpasswd file:

userwdhash

The problem: whether I explicitly address the index.php script, or just the folder it resides in, Wordpress jumps in and 404's. Here is the Wordpress .htaccess file:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

If I understand these, the two RewriteCond directives should prevent rewriting when the target is an existing file, or a directory. However, it seems not to work. Fwiw, I checked the permissions on the listing index.php and containing folder and they're consistent with the rest of the wordpress install.

Just to recap the folder structure:

/home/myuser/ <=== where .htpasswd is
/home/myuser/public_html/ <=== wp root, wp .htaccess
/home/myuser/public_html/misc/private/ <=== my .htaccess, directory listing script

I have Googled around but so far haven't found anything that gets Wordpress out of the way for this specific subdirectory. Anyone have any clues?

 

[Tweak155]

I'm having trouble following what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve, but I suggest figuring it out without involving WP directories, then when you do, migrate it back in with WP.

 

[Markbnj]

Got some help on the Wordpress forums. Adding:

ErrorDocument 401 /&#37;{REQUEST_URI}/noerror.html
ErrorDocument 403 /%{REQUEST_URI}/noerror.html

To the Wordpress .htaccess file did the trick. Apparently the 401/403 when the user hit the protected folder were getting redirected to index.php in Wordpress.

I guess the only way this could cause a problem is if WP uses .htaccess to protected something, and depends on the redirect, but that sounds unlikely, and so far it doesn't appear to be causing any issues with the main site.