.htaccess IF directory exists - apache

Question

I have a development server and a live server. Both use the same .htaccess but I want the development server to be password protected. When I copy the .htaccess file over to the live, I get a 500 error. Does .htaccess offer some way to only password protect directories using conditionals like IF?
what I'm using:
<Directory "/home/my/path/to/development/site/">
AuthName "Restricted Area 52"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/my/path/to/development/site/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
require valid-user
</Directory>
Could really use some help.

Answer 1

You can't have <Directory> containers inside an htaccess file, but you can conditionally turn on or off HTTP auth based on an environment varaible.
So for example, say your production site is http://production.example.com and your dev site is http://dev.example.com then you can check against the HTTP Host and set an environment variable:
SetEnvIfNoCase Host ^dev\.example\.com$ require_auth=true
Or, if the path is different, say your production site is http://example.com/ and dev site is http://example.com/dev/, then you can check against the requested URI:
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI ^/dev/ require_auth=true
There's several other checks you can make that's outlined in the mod_setenvif. Either way, you want to set require_auth=true when it's a request for dev. Then you setup your auth stuff to use Satisfy Any:
# Auth stuff
AuthUserFile /home/my/path/to/development/site/.htpasswd
AuthName "Restricted Area 52"
AuthType Basic
# Setup a deny/allow
Order Deny,Allow
# Deny from everyone
Deny from all
# except if either of these are satisfied
Satisfy any
# 1. a valid authenticated user
Require valid-user
# or 2. the "require_auth" var is NOT set
Allow from env=!require_auth
So if require_auth isn't set, then no auth is required, and your SetenvIf should set it if it's a dev request.