[Web4lib] .htaccess help?

[Junior Tidal]

Hi all, 

I want to password protect a directory that uses index.php as the main
index file. I've updated the .htaccess to include 

DirectoryIndex index.php

but I keep getting a 404 error whenever I try to access the directory.
There is no pop-up for a username or password, and index.php contains no
errors. What the file does is connect to an external MySQL database and
displays the info into a webpage. Can anyone help me figure out what is
going wrong?

thanks!

Junior Tidal
Web Services and Multimedia Librarian
CUNY New York City College of Technology
300 Jay Street
Brooklyn, NY 11210
718.260.5481