I had install the apache on rhel, I want to use this as proxy for another server, following is the entry of my virtual host <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName <servername> DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/httpd-2.4.3// ProxyRequests Off <proxy> Order deny,allow Allow from all AuthType Basic AuthName "Authenticated Proxy" AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache/password.htpasswd Require valid-user </proxy> ProxyPass / http://<myserver>:8080/ ProxyPassReverse / http://<myserver>:8080/ <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /usr/local/apache> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order Allow,Deny Allow from all </Directory> LogLevel Warn </VirtualHost> given the permission 0644 to password.htpasswd and its parent directory till root, also tried with starting the apache as root. exact error is [Thu Dec 06 18:44:19.246690 2012] [authn_file:error] [pid 4260:tid 1127762240] (13)Permission denied: [client 10.40.55.119:54854] AH01620: Could not open password file: /usr/local/apache/password.htpasswd Any help guys is really appreciated .