Authentication for folder in webserver

We have several directories which have been restricted to some users in our company. Since they will need to authenticate before able to access the directory via web browser, I need to manage simple Apache user authentication using htpasswd.

User Authentication
To create new password protected directory under /home/website/public_html/secure1, create a new .htaccess file:

$ vim /home/website/public_html/secure1/.htaccess
And enter following line:

AuthUserFile /home/website/.htpasswd
AuthType Basic
AuthName "User Authentication"
Require valid-user
This will tell Apache to refer to .htpasswd for the user authentication data. Now let create a user to be inserted into .htpasswd file:

$ htpasswd -c /home/website/.htpasswd myfirstuser
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user myfirstuser
Format: htpasswd [options] [location of .htpasswd to be create] [username]

Now you can try to access the secure directory using website: mywebsite.com/secure1. You should able to see login box pop out asking for username and password.

To add another user:

$ htpasswd /home/website/.htpasswd myseconduser
This will insert another line into .htpasswd file. If you see the current value, it should be:

$ cat /home/website/.htpasswd
myfirstuser: Ob5Y/eFTeSXEw
myseconduser: 9oopndPXV7sdE
Group Authentication
In some cases, I need to have a group of people able to access some secure folders. Lets say we have following users:

=================================================================
USER | GROUP | DIRECTORY
=================================================================
David | IT | /home/website/public_html/secure-it
Nade | IT | /home/website/public_html/secure-it
Mike | Admin | /home/website/public_html/secure-admin
Seth | Boss | /home/website/public_html/secure-boss
=================================================================
1. Insert the users into htpasswd file. I will put this under /home/website/.htpasswd:

$ htpasswd -c /home/website/.htpasswd david
$ htpasswd /home/website/.htpasswd nade
$ htpasswd /home/website/.htpasswd mike
$ htpasswd /home/website/.htpasswd seth
2. Create a htgroup file. This will describe the group for every user. Create a new file /home/website/.htgroup and add following line. Boss group can access all secure directories and others can only access their respective directories:

it: david nade seth
admin: mike seth
boss: seth
3. Apply the access into htacess files for every directories that you want to secure.

For IT group, create new .htaccess file:

$ vim /home/website/public_html/secure-it/.htaccess
And add following line:

AuthUserFile /home/website/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /home/website/.htgroup
AuthName "User Authentication"
AuthType Basic
Require group it
For admin group, create new file:

$ vim /home/website/public_html/secure-admin/.htaccess
And add following line:

AuthUserFile /home/website/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /home/website/.htgroup
AuthName "User Authentication"
AuthType Basic
Require group admin
For Boss group, create new file:

$ vim /home/website/public_html/secure-boss/.htaccess
And add following line:

AuthUserFile /home/website/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /home/website/.htgroup
AuthName "User Authentication"
AuthType Basic
Require group boss