The HTTP Server can be configured with many different authentication directives. The authentication is hierarchical in that any URI can be given an authentication directive in order to override a parent URI authentication directive.

The different AuthType values offer various levels of security. From the least to most secure:

None no authentication necessary

Basic encodes passwords using Base64

Digest encodes passwords using MD5

SSL page can only be accessed over SSL (no password)

SSL/Basic page can only be accessed over SSL (encodes passwords using Base64)

SSL/Digest page can only be accessed over SSL (encodes passwords using MD5)

Note that SSL by itself does not require a password but all data transferred to an from the HTTP Server is encrypted.

There is no real reason to create an authentication directive using None unless you want to override a parent directive that uses some other AuthType.

Multiple users can be configured within a single authentication directive.