Can't get .htaccess file to work.

[Japlabot]

I've put my /home/site/.htaccess file one level up from the root of my web directory (/home/site/www/)

I keep getting 500 Internal Server Errors with Apache 1.3.33. I'm not sure that's wrong, does .htaccess not support <Directory> Scope Containers?

<Directory /home/site/www/>
DirectoryIndex index.php index.htm index.html
Options -Indexes
Redirect /1 http://www.yahoo.com/
</Directory>

<Directory /home/site/www/subdirectory/private/>
Options +Indexes
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Private"
AuthUserFile /home/site/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
<Limit GET POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>
</Directory>

<Directory /home/site/www/subdirectory/scripts/>
DirectoryIndex home.html
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Scripts"
AuthUserFile /home/site/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
<Limit GET POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>
</Directory>

<Directory /home/site/www/mail/>
AuthType Basic
AuthName "eMail"
AuthUserFile /home/site/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
<Limit GET POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>
</Directory>

This is shared hosting, so I don't have access to the main server configuration. I changed some of the names because I don't want to share that information.

Any and all help is appriciated.

[DaveLegg Developer]

I can't find anything against that, but wouldn't it be easier just to drop a .htaccess file in each of the directories?