[techtalk] .htaccess problem

[terry]

I'm trying to enable passwords for access to
my apache webserver.

Can someone spot where I am going wrong?
Thanks for your help.

I have edited the httpd.conf file. I have:

________________________________________
# First, we configure the "default" to be a very restrictive set of
# permissions.
#
<Directory />
    Options -FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

#
# Note that from this point forward you must specifically allow
# particular features to be enabled - so if something's not working as
# you might expect, make sure that you have specifically enabled it
# below.
#

#
# This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to.
#
<Directory "/usr/local/httpd/htdocs">

#
# This may also be "None", "All", or any combination of "Indexes",
# "Includes", "FollowSymLinks", "ExecCGI", or "MultiViews".
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
    Options Indexes -FollowSymLinks +Includes

#
# This controls which options the .htaccess files in directories can
# override. Can also be "All", or any combination of "Options",
"FileInfo",
# "AuthConfig", and "Limit"
#
    AllowOverride AuthConfig Limit

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
_____________________________

Then in the web root directory I have the .htaccess file

AuthName "Page page"

AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /usr/local/httpd/htdocs/.htpassword
order allow,deny
Allow from all

require valid-user

---------------------
the .htpassword is in the same directory (for now, I've also tried
putting
it in a users home directory)

 I created using htpasswrd -c .htpassword username
___________________________________

I get the following error:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was
unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, root at localhost and inform them
of the time the error occurred, and anything
you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error
log.

-------------------------------------------

I tried putting similar .htaccess and .htpassword files
in a user's public_html directory, where they had no effect.

Thanks for any tips.