Apache mod_auth can't authenticate

[Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com>]

Ok, I'm feeling pretty retarded as I can't figure this out.

I'm trying to set up user authentication in apache.  So I created a
<Directory /my/restricted/dir> entry in httpd.conf for the area with
restricted access and gave it 'AllowOverride AuthConfig'.

I also made sure I was loading 'auth_module', and set 'AccessFileName
.htaccess'.

In the restricted directory, I placed a '.htaccess' file containing:

AuthName "restricted stuff"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /etc/apache/users
require valid-user

Then I used htpasswd and added a user to /etc/apache/users.  Then I
issued a '/etc/init.d/apache restart', tested it out, and it didn't
work.  The web browser prompts me for a username and password, which I
enter correctly, but it fails to authenticate me and denies me
access.  The access.log and error.log files don't give any useful
information.

If I remove the .htaccess file from the directory in question,
everything works fine (without authentication, of course).  The
/etc/apache/users file is world-readable (ugh), so that shouldn't be a
problem.  I tried using all the different types of encryption
available with htpasswd...

Any ideas?

-- 
Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com>