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Windows users do not have the ability to specify “AuthUserFile /dev/null”. Furthermore, that is an undesirable solution (as others have noted). This is the appropriate method, provided as a complete example (these directives would go inside a tag within httpd.conf, a .htaccess file, etc.):

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Satisfy all
AuthBasicProvider dbm
AuthDBMType SDBM
AuthName “Protected Area”
AuthType Basic
AuthDBMUserFile “D:/Program Files/Apache/passwords.dat”
require valid-user

Obviously, “AuthBasicProvider” and “AuthDBMType” must reflect the correct values for your system (available types for “AuthDBMType” are: default|SDBM|GDBM|NDBM|DB). See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_auth_dbm.html and http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.1/mod/mod_auth_basic.html for additional information.

The above example functions as expected with Apache 2.2.6 on Windows 7 x86. “passwords.dat” should be created with something like this:

> D:\Program Files\apache\bin>htdbm -cs “D:\Program Files\Apache\passwords.dat” yourname

Note also that, according to the mod_auth_basic manual page (cited above), setting “AuthBasicAuthoritative” to “Off” “… should only be necessary when combining mod_auth_basic with third-party modules that are not configured with the AuthBasicProvider directive.”

Thanks to everyone here for the assistance in getting this to work properly (under Windows, no less).

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Satisfy all
AuthBasicProvider dbm
AuthDBMType SDBM
AuthBasicAuthoritative Off
AuthName “Protected Area”
AuthType Basic
AuthDBMUserFile “D:/Program Files/Apache/passwords.dat”
require valid-user

Obviously, “AuthBasicProvider” and “AuthDBMType” must reflect the correct values for your system (available types for “AuthDBMType” are: default|SDBM|GDBM|NDBM|DB). See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_auth_dbm.html and http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.1/mod/mod_auth_basic.html for additional information.

The above example functions as expected with Berkeley DB (11gR2) and Apache 2.0.48 on Windows 7 x86. “passwords.dat” should be created with something like this:

> D:\Program Files\apache\bin>htdbm -cs “D:\Program Files\Apache\passwords.dat” yourname

Be good!

The solution is to have `AuthBasicAuthoritative Off`.

But Apache error log keeps claiming `Internal error: pcfg_openfile() called with NULL filename` and `(9)Bad file descriptor: Could not open password file: (null)`.

To get rid of that error too add `AuthUserFile /dev/null`.

Thus my `httpd.conf` extract
.
.

DAV svn
SVNParentPath /var/svn

# To get rid of
# 1. `Internal error: pcfg_openfile() called with NULL filename`
# 2. `user … not found`
AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthBasicAuthoritative Off
.
.
.
require valid-user

.
.
.

My environment:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.2 (Kernel 2.6.18-92.el5)
Apache 2.2.11
Subversion 1.6.3

Note: I’m authenticating using mod_auth_mysql v3.0.0.

To avoid the entries in the error log, I created an empty password file (by creating a one user file and then deleting the user), then pointed apache to it.

htpasswd -c /home/test/emptypw testuser
htpasswd -D /home/test/emptypw testuser

# patch for ‘Internal error: pcfg_openfile() called with NULL filename’
# empty password file ‘emptypw’ prevents error messages
AuthBasicAuthoritative Off
AuthUserFile /home/test/emptypw

FYI, also found this line in my logs “(9)Bad file descriptor: Could not open password file: (null)” which was also caused by this error.

AuthUserFile /dev/null

to your configuration file. I found this over here: http://readthefuckingmanual.net/error/1387/ (sorry for the website name–not mine!)

And thanks for the post–hard to find solutions sometimes for simple stuff like this.

-Shane