The most time we do not password protect home directory. It's better to create subdirectory to store all the files you wish to protect. You can also protect your cgi-bin dir if you have scripts you need to control access to. The most simple one is to create a file named ".htaccess" containing these lines:

AuthName member only
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /path/to/a/dir/under/your/home/.htpasswd
require valid-user

You can change "member only" to reflect what you are restricting. You also need to change the "username" to your username, and "/path/to/a/dir/under/your/home/" to the directory path in the server under your home root. Save this file and send through ftp into the dir you want to protect.

After then, you need to create encrypted passwords for each of the users you want to allow into the protected directory. You can do this by entering their passwords into encryption system like hypermart< p> http://www.hypermart.net/members/utilities/general/passencrypt.html

Copy each user's encrypted password into a file named ".htpasswd" using this format:

username1:password1
username2:password2 ...

Username1 is the name of the first user, and password1 is their encrypted password. When you have entered all users and their passwords into this file, FTP it into the above "/path/to/a/dir/under/your/home/".

That's it! The dir is now protected.