Apache Basic Authentication for mod_wsgi (inc. Django) applications

This is accomplished by editing the httpd.conf for the Apache server that runs your mod_wsgi/Django application. First, add the following lines of code near the top of your mod_wsgi/Django application's httpd.conf file:

LoadModule auth_basic_module modules/mod_auth_basic.so
LoadModule authn_file_module modules/mod_authn_file.so
LoadModule authz_user_module modules/mod_authz_user.so

And then the following lines after the "WSGIScriptAlias" line (at the end of your httpd.conf):

<Location />
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Authentication Required"
AuthUserFile "/path/to/.htpasswd"
Require valid-user
</Location>

It is necessary to restart the Apache instance in order for these changes to take effect.

Note: You can protect a sub-path of an application (for example, /members) using:

<Location /members>
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Authentication Required"
AuthUserFile "/path/to/.htpasswd"
Require valid-user
</Location>

Lastly, the 'htpasswd' command is used to create the .htpasswd file referenced above. More information on .htpasswd files (and other features of Apache Basic Authentication) can be found in the related guide for Static/CGI/PHP applications:

http://docs.webfaction.com/software/static.html#password-protecting-a-directory-with-a-static-cgi-php-app

I have found that if you are using Django & mod_wsgi, you need to add the following configuration directive to your httpd.conf file:

WSGIPassAuthorization On

(see this old forum topic)

You can also achieve this easily within django and login a django user. See this sample views.py:

import base64
from django.contrib.auth import authenticate
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.shortcuts import render_to_response

def basic_auth(request):    
    if request.META.get('HTTP_AUTHORIZATION', 'whatever')[:5] == 'Basic':    
        auth = base64.b64decode(request.META.get('HTTP_AUTHORIZATION', 'none')[6:]).split(":")    
        if authenticate(username=auth[0], password=auth[1]) is not None:    
            return render_to_response('template.html', {})    
    response = HttpResponse()    
    response.status_code = 401    
    response['WWW-Authenticate'] = 'Basic realm="Basic Auth"'    
    return response

thanks - I too needed to

<Files .*> Require all denied </Files>