The multi-auth directory is an example of how one could set up a scheme where a directory can be accessed via either UW NetID authentication (Pubcookie) or Basic Authentication.

Here's the contents of the multi-auth directory (ls -lF):

total 16
drwxr-s---    2 agraf    www          4096 Jun 11  2008 basic/
drwxr-s---    3 agraf    www          4096 Aug  1  2008 content/
-rw-r--r--    1 agraf    www          3098 Aug  1  2008 index.php
drwxr-s---    2 agraf    www          4096 Jul 31  2008 uwnetid/

You cannot get to the content directory, because it has the following .htaccess file:

deny from all

The content directory contains an index and the ment directory, which you cannot access directly because of the .htaccess restrictions on the content directory.

This is a listing of the contents of the content directory (ls -alF):

total 20
drwxr-s---    3 agraf    www          4096 Aug  1  2008 ./
drwxr-s---    5 agraf    www          4096 Aug  1  2008 ../
-rw-r--r--    1 agraf    www            14 Dec 17  2007 .htaccess
-rw-r--r--    1 agraf    www           207 Jul 31  2008 index.php
drwxr-sr-x    2 agraf    www          4096 Jul 31  2008 ment/

The uwnetid directory will allow anyone with a UW NetID to log in to see the contents of the content directory and the content/ment directory because it has symbolic links to the index of the content directory and to the content/ment directory.

This is a listing of the contents of the uwnetid directory (ls -alF):

total 12
drwxr-s---    2 agraf    www          4096 Jul 31  2008 ./
drwxr-s---    5 agraf    www          4096 Aug  1  2008 ../
-rw-r--r--    1 agraf    www            36 Dec 17  2007 .htaccess
lrwxrwxrwx    1 agraf    www            20 Jul 31  2008 index.php -> ../content/index.php
lrwxrwxrwx    1 agraf    www            15 Jun 11  2008 ment -> ../content/ment/

The basic directory will allow users who have the username and password set up in the .htpasswd and .htaccess file in the basic directory (in this case the username/password combination is test/test) to see the contents of the content directory and the content/ment directory because it has symbolic links to the index of the content directory and to the content/ment directory.

This is a listing of the contents of the basic directory (ls -alF):

total 16
drwxr-s---    2 agraf    www          4096 Jun 11  2008 ./
drwxr-s---    5 agraf    www          4096 Aug  1  2008 ../
-rw-r--r--    1 agraf    www            83 Dec 17  2007 .htaccess
-rw-r--r--    1 agraf    www            19 Dec 17  2007 .htpasswd
lrwxrwxrwx    1 agraf    www            21 Jan 15  2008 index.html -> ../content/index.html
lrwxrwxrwx    1 agraf    www            15 Jan 15  2008 ment -> ../content/ment/

So both the uwnetid and the basic directory display the index of the content directory, because they have a symbolic link to the index of the content directory. That works, but if you want to make more than one file accessible in this way, you would need to edit the symbolic links whenever you add or remove files from the content directory. That would be annoying, so we have the ment directory. You can link to basic/ment or uwnetid/ment. Using a subdirectory of the content directory, you can put whatever files you want in there and change them without editing the symbolic links.