A wordpress network / multisite setup uses virtual directories.
When you have a wordpress network setup on www.yourdomain.com, you can have multiple blogs with only one WordPress installation, for example:
www.yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com/johndoe
www.yourdomain.com/janedoe
Suppose you want to password protect only one subsite e.g. ‘janedoe’, you can’t just create a ‘janedoe’ folder on your webserver with a particular .htaccess in it.
You need to create a secured environment for the virtual folder in your main .htaccess (where all other WordPress rules reside) using the following code:
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI "^/janedoe/" SECURED AuthType Basic AuthName "restricted area" AuthUserFile /home/mydomain/.htpasswd require valid-user Satisfy any Order allow,deny Allow from all Deny from env=SECURED