.htaccess ignored when using Symbolic link to static-only app

Question

Hello. I'm generating project documentation using Sphinx. My workflow is to write docs on the local machine and then push it to the hg repo on webfaction account. The compiled static html is located here: /home/myuser/hgrepos/project_name/repo_name/_build/html. Using the control panel I created a link to static-only app that points to that directory. Then I added a website and associated it to the symlink app so that the users always read fresh documentation.

Now I'd like to protect the contents, but it seems that .htaccess is being ignored. The content of /home/myuser/hgrepos/project_name/repo_name/_build/html/.htaccess is:

AuthType Basic
AuthName Docs
AuthUserFile /home/myuser/webapps/app_name/.htpasswd
# ALSO TRIED THIS BUT NOTHING CHANGED:
# AuthUserFile /home/myuser/hgrepos/project_name/repo_name/_build/html/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

<Files ~ "^\.ht">
    Order allow,deny
    Deny from all
</Files>

The issue is that the auth window doesn't appear and everyone can read the docs without providing user/pass.

What do I do wrong?

Thanks

Accepted Answer

Hi,

Symbolic link apps are being treated as static-only apps. As the app's doc says when you create one:

"The files within are served by a shared web server process (typically nginx). This application is exclusively static; PHP files and .htaccess files, for example, will not be interpreted."

And that's mostly because they are being served by our nginx frontend which by design doesn't read .htaccess files.

One thing you could do would be to create a Static/CGI/PHP5.3 app, named for example sphinx_html, and create a hook on Mercurial to copy your files there (~/webapps/sphinx_html) after a push.

.htaccess ignored when using Symbolic link to static-only app

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