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 and 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.